TCB April 27, 2016 — Palaces of Cedar

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com April 27 – May 3, 2016

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Life in Greensboro’s sweet spot PAGE 16

Rebooting Whitaker Park PAGE 8

Uniting for Skippy’s PAGE 15

Molly and Quilla PAGE 22

April 27 — May3, 2016

T H E D R A MA C E N T E R C H I L DR EN’S T HE AT R E P R E SE N TS

Much Ado About Nothing YOUTH PRODUCTION

By William Shakespeare

April 29 - May 1, 2016 at 5:30pm

Tanger Bicentennial Gardens

1105 Hobbs Road • Greensboro, NC

www.TheDramaCenter.com www.facebook.com/cityarts1

For tickets call 336-335-6426

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Crapshoot

by Brian Clarey

25 UP FRONT

OPINION

3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

14 Editorial: It’s time 14 Citizen Green: The return of the neocons 15 It Just Might Work: Thinking Fink 15 Fresh Eyes: We the people, still one

NEWS 8 H air-care reboots Whitaker Park 10 HB2 hurts workers too 12 HPJ: HPU survey on food hardship reinforces national study

22 Music: Electronica meets Americana 24 Stage: GTCC got drama

FUN & GAMES 25 Git along, li’l dogies

GAMES

COVER

28 Jonesin’ Crossword

16 Palaces of Cedar

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

CULTURE

29 South Davie Street

20 Food: My go-to to-go spot 21 Barstool: All fun, no games at Beer Olympics

ALL SHE WROTE 30 Darling Nikki

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I think right now it’s just up for grabs with all the development happening around, and we’ll have to see what happens. It’s beeen a place that people like me can live....

Let’s hope Cedar stays an interesting place for people of various incomes to live.

— Liz Fitzgerald, in the Cover, page 18 1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com

NEST Advertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every month!

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

CONTRIBUTORS

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

NEST EDITOR Alex Klein

SALES EXECUTIVE Korinna Sergent

allen@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com eric@triad-city-beat.com

alex@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Joanna Rutter intern@triad-city-beat.com

dick@triad-city-beat.com

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

nest@triad-city-beat.com Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

Cover photography by Carolyn de Berry Wesley Morris takes stock from his porch on Cedar Street.

korinna@triad-city-beat.com

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.

They’re allowed one look inside before they bid.

So the one guy holds his flashlight like a dart and plays the tight LED beam into the far corners of the storage space, looking for buried treasure in the 10-by-10 darkness. There are books in boxes, framed art leaning in stacks against the walls, clothes in garbage bags and draped over a late-model exercycle.

There’s always some sort of exercise equipment, Big Al says.

The self-storage business does not excite Big Al in the way, say, outdoor music festivals or the Pittsburgh Steelers do. But it’s paid the bills in his family for four generations, and he’s sure as hell not gonna drop the ball. So he runs the facilities, counts the beans and, when the time comes, auctions off the stuff from rental agreements gone bad in a necessary bit of profit recovery that attracts a brand of gamblers and scavengers with cash in hand and trucks at the ready.

Flashlight spits tobacco juice into a plastic Coke bottle he’s kept in the side pocket of his dusty gray cargo shorts. He drives the bid for a 5-by-10, showing an old TV and weathered armchair, up from $50 to $180 before pulling back. It goes for $240.

Lot B-104’s got a mud-caked scooter parked near the front.

“If it’s foreign made,” Flashlight warns the couple dozen bidders, “it’s hard to get parts.” This bit of wisdom is instantly accepted as gospel. Nevertheless, the contents of B-104 goes for $375, and the buyer discovers a trove of good wood furniture under the bundled rags.

Every lot is a gamble — even Big Al is forbidden by law to check out what’s inside. And for every scavenged six-figure antique or piece of priceless art are thousands of everyday spaces with old clothes, boxes of videotapes, a couch with suspicious stains on it and maybe a Bowflex. For what it’s worth, Big Al says he’s never seen a big storage-auction score. Ever.

Most of the plunderers have stores where they sell the best of their buys. Some are curious collectors, and others fuel regular yard sales with their finds.

As a business enterprise, the key to plundering storage is mathematical. For each lot purchased, the agent will either overpay or underpay and won’t find out until after she’s bought it. One overpay early in the day will necessitate an underpay before the end of the auctions just to break even or maybe come ahead.

There’s the additional cost of disposing the detritus, finally — dirty sheets, moldy baby clothes, single sneakers and such — into the landfill.

The guy who made out the best over the years, Big Al says, lived on a huge plot of land way out in a rural county.

“The guy with his own burn pile always does the best,” Big Al says.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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April 27 — May3, 2016

CITY LIFE April 27 – May 3

by Joanna Rutter

ALL WEEKEND Mary Poppins @ High Point Theatre (HP) High Point Community Theatre closes its 2015-2016 with this classic tale of a tightly wound dad and the ragtag crew of 150 chimney sweeps who taught him to take life a bit less seriously. Or is that an incorrect reading of the plot? No matter. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Step in Time” will be sung; kites will be flown and perhaps Ms. Poppins, too.

The cast is made up of more than 50 Triad-area performers, confirming it will be a spectacle worth seeing. Get tickets at hpct.net.

Into the Woods @ UNCG (GSO), Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.

“Anything can happen in the woods....” Iconic lines from the glorious Stephen Sondheim musical that pokes fun at Disney princess culture and opts to mash up of all the more grotesque, 1500s versions of fairy tales into a haunting musical about human nature, the capacity for evil, and beans. The School of Music, Theatre and Dance will perform with a 22-piece, on-stage orchestra conducted by Dominick Amendum; hopefully a giant will not fall on them. Bryan Conger directs. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit performingarts.uncg.edu/into-the-woods.

WEDNESDAY

Silver City Bound @ Roots Revival Stage (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Centenary United Methodist Church (of all places) hosts a regular concert series of back-to-Americana folk get-togethers. Keep that in your pocket for your next game of Winston-Salem “I Definitely Did Not Know That.” You may recognize members from Roots Revival’s leadership team: Sam Frazier and Martha Bassett, both of North C singer-songwriter acclaim, helm the ship. NYC-based Silver City Bound visit this week and bring some honky-tonk with them. So you don’t get too turned around, you’re instructed to enter at 4 1/2 Street. More details can be found at rootsrevivalws.com Dance From Above presents: DJ Taye @ the Crown at Carolina Theatre (GSO), 9 p.m.

Were you producing since the age of 12 and DJing at the age of 15? You almost certainly weren’t. But Chicago’s Dante Sanders was, which is why he gets to run the Crown this Wednesday. The youngest member of the esteemed Teklife label just released his debut EP late last year. He’ll be joined by Dance From Above resident DJs Alvin Shavers, Darklove and fiftyfootshadows, along with live visual from thefacesblur. Tickets at the door. For more information, go to dancefromabove.com.

THURSDAY

Civil Rights Activism panel: Local 22 and Law Enforcement @ New Winston Museum (W-S), 5:30 p.m.

The museum kicks off a new quarterly salon series on civil rights activism in Winston-Salem. First up on Thursday’s panel, special guests Dr. Robert Korstad, author of Civil Rights Unionism, and Richard Koritz (son of Local 22 organizer Philip Koritz and board member for the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro) will discuss the union’s activity in Winston-Salem since its early days as a primarily black tobacco manufacturing workers’ union, with a special focus on its interactions with the local police department and the criminal justice system. The discussion will be moderated by Alex Harris and is free. Visit newwinston.org for more details.

FRIDAY

Stand Against Racism @ YWCA (GSO), 5 p.m.

Make a bold expression of solidarity with fellow equality-lovers at the Y, where you will be lining up to form a human chain on the sidewalks along Wendover Avenue, starting at the YWCA building and stretching down as far as how many people show up. This iteration of the nation-wise movement happening in over 2,000 locations across the country will feature music, games and door prizes. Go to ywcagsonc.org to RSVP. Notable Latinos of the Triad @ the Latino Community Coalition of Guilford (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

At this gala-style fundraiser for Latino youth education, expect a plated dinner, silent auction, and live entertainment provided by West End Mambo, along with recognizing achievements made by and for the Latino community and celebrating this year’s Notable Latino and Corazón Latino nominees. And hopefully platanos. Dress fancy, as semiformal attire is required. Tickets can be found via the event’s Facebook page.

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SATURDAY

triad-city-beat.com

Fifth Friday Open Mic @ Centennial Station (HP), 7 p.m.

It’s the launch of a new event series with the High Point Arts Council, featuring rapid-fire talent in the sometimes merciful but usually too short time of 20 minutes. An open mic waiting list for a January event got so backed up they’re kind of playing catchup here.

Obviously, High Point does not lack for talent, just enough room to get the all on one evening’s bill. (A good problem to have.) Admission’s free, and there’s a cash bar. Contact Clint Bowman at Programs@highpointarts.org or at 336.889.2787 ext. 26 if you want to perform next time.

Take Yourself-ie Downtown.

SEE AND BE SEEN WITH

# DGSOSelfie

Great American Cleanup @ High Point City Lake, 10 a.m.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share,” takes on a whole new meaning around Earth Day season, that part of April where we all remember: Humans are just awful. Meet up with the Triad Water Stewards (a great name for a B-level environmental superhero team) to target some of the worst trashy areas. Bags and gloves will be provided and Get:Outdoors will provide boats and canoes. Life hack: Create so little waste that this event doesn’t have to happen next year. RSVP on the Facebook event page.

The Green Bean

Get the lowdown on Downtown Greensboro and share your favorite downtown moments by posting on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter using #DGSOSelfie (or you can email them to Selfies@downtowngreensboro.net). And all your postings may get you featured in our upcoming ads and social media feeds!

By sharing your photos, you allow Downtown Greensboro Inc (DGI) to use them for the purpose of advertising.

Photos will only be used by DGI and the City of Greensboro.

2016 DOWNTOWN GREENSBORO INCORPORATED

Worker Justice Assembly @ Central Carolina Worker Justice Center (GSO) 10 a.m.

CCWJC’s cry to action: “Calling all workers to assemble: black, Latinx, white, queer, immigrant, young, students!” If you’re a curious citizen wondering about your rights, or looking for work and having trouble finding it, or are having issues at your current job, celebrate International Workers Day by connecting with other like-minded workers to express solidarity for raising the minimum wage to $15, better working conditions, and respect in workplaces in Greensboro. Visit the Facebook event for further info.

Take a Music Stand to HB 2 @ Hamburger Square (GSO), 1 p.m.

Greensboro musician Steve Haines is urging all able musicians to perform in various places on Saturday at 1 p.m. to demonstrate their desire to see House Bill 2 repealed. Front yards, driveways, produce aisle, you name it. Haines wants to use music to fight instead of anger. A worthy quest. He’ll be performing with his band in Hamburger Square, but he encourages all local musicians to perform wherever they are. For more information, contact Steve Haines at MusicApril30@gmail.com or 336.897.8800.

SUNDAY

Walk & Roll @ Innovation Quarter (W-S), 1 p.m.

Research Parkway is closing down (alter your travel plans accordingly) to make way for an afternoon block party for playing the street without worrying about cars. Cycling, skateboarding or skating is encouraged, and people in wheelchairs or using walkers are invited to participate, too. Expect to see hula-hoops, jump ropes, and corn hole lying around.

For serious cyclists, there are 30- or 10-mile organized bike rides that will start at 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., respectively. All activities except for the food vendors are free. For more information, go to CityofWS.org/BikeMonth.

ic s u M e Th of the

DOWNTOWNGREENSBORO.NET

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Wear your jeans and boots and rock with the Greensboro Symphony!

Don’t miss classic megahits, including “Hotel California,” “Desperado,” “Take It Easy,” and much more from this amazing group! .

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TICKETS $34, $40, $46; STUDENTS $12

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April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games

More like HB Boo HB2 is causing real economic damage to the state [“Opposition to HB2 puts a ‘dent’ in furniture market attendance,” by Jordan Green, April 20, 2016]. North Carolina’s national and international reputation is taking a real beating. The law should immediately be repealed.

Guest, via triad-city-beat.com Sitting in for a good cause Fantastic idea! [“It Just Might Work: Furniture market musical chairs,” by Eric Ginsburg, April 20, 2016.] And then donate the chairs to the Barnabas Network, a Guilford County-based furniture bank that provides home furnishings to people moving out of homelessness and into their own homes. Love it! estratford, via triad-city-beat.com

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Berger the butcher Phil Berger sold out Rockingham County just for his own personal political reasons [“Feeling the local Bern: Professor challenges lawmaker,” by Eric Ginsburg, April 20, 2016]. He knew the brewery was closing but didn’t do anything until they announced it publicly… then he shows up. He’s a professional job killer — pushing HB2 after seeing how businesses left Indiana and Georgia before they reversed course. One thing Berger is good at is killing jobs!

Red West, via triad-city-beat.com

6

ary’s Gourmet Diner

(336) 723-7239

breakfastofcourse.com

5 reflections on Prince

by Jordan Green

1. Matthew Arnold

News of the death of Prince Rogers Nelson stunned me when I heard it on National Public Radio’s “Here & Now” last week, but so many people have articulated why this incredible artist’s passing was a collective blow much better than I could. The first who comes to mind is my college friend, Matthew Arnold, riffing on a vox.com article entitled “Prince gave black kids permission to be weirdos.” Arnold, who grew up in southeastern Wisconsin, wrote, “Yep, white kids, too. And even more than Bowie, he gave American boys permission to be ways other than hyper-masculine, emotionally repressed little dickbots at a time when the gender and sex panic of the Reagan years was at a fever pitch.

“I remember being out in the schoolyard back at Southport Elementary, maybe 5th grade, and crew-cutted would-be alpha male spat accusingly, ‘I bet you like Prince.’ The implicit homophobia of this statement was plain. As I remember it, I considered my allegiances for a split second, weighed the associations — blackness, sexual ambiguity, gender fluidity and, well, sex personified, versus belonging to a dumb sexless tribe I’d never really belong to anyway — and answered: ‘Yeah. I like Prince.’”

2. Richard Kim

Richard Kim, the executive editor at the Nation, nailed the subversive role Prince played in the culturally repressed 1980s in a four-paragraph reflection published on the day of the artist’s death. “If you were a kid growing in the ’80s — maybe let’s say you’re gay too — this is what you first learned about sex: It will kill you,” Kim writes. “You don’t have sex yet; you don’t even really know what it is, but you know that it is lethal. That somehow it leads to the men with the skeletal bodies and blotchy marks on their skin that you see on the television, the men who don’t look at the camera and are alone.” Kim concludes with this immortal line: “On one side of your childhood, there is Reagan and AIDS and nuclear war and the yelling Christians. And on the other side, there is Prince.”

3. Melissa Harris-Perry

Not everyone got Prince at first, and it’s refreshing that Melissa Harris-Perry admits it, and represents those of us, like me, who were late to the party. Harris-Perry — the new editor-at-large at Elle.com, Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem resident — writes about finally getting “the bravado, the freedom, the woundedness, the eroticism, the dualities, the unmatched genius” of Prince’s artistic vision. “I started to hear everything I missed when I listened with my most uncompromisingly categorical mind. I heard how the music was neither funk, nor soul, nor jazz, nor rock, but all of them. That is exactly the kind of public voice I wanted to have. I wanted to bring social science, and literature, and humor, and ordinary wisdom, and black-girl vernacular together in one unexpected creative fusion that felt good if you could let go and be inside it.”

4. Me

My parents’ reaction against Prince is a big part of my appreciation of him. I remember when they took me to see the Grateful Dead in Cincinnati in 1985. Witnessing affluent college students in brand-new Toyota pickups rolling into the park, my dad hilariously asked, “What are these — Prince fans?” My dad was wise and kind, but this may have been the most boneheaded thing he ever uttered. As a bearded child of the Summer of Love and a farmer who fixed up secondhand cars, he was concerned about a new breed of Deadhead that might be more attracted to flash and trendiness. Yes, Prince was flashy, but his fans were far more working-class than the permanent vacationers who took the summers off to follow the Dead. And if you wanted to have a throwdown to determine who had the most artistic integrity in 1985, it would not have been grizzled diehards of the hippie generation who were singing, “We will get by/ We will survive.”

5. Charlie Murphy

Around the same time my dad completely missed the boat on Prince, Charlie Murphy — older brother of comedian Eddie Murphy — misjudged the purple one in a different way. The 2004 skit from “Chappelle’s Show,” with Murphy playing himself and Dave Chappelle portraying Prince is hilarious, and you need to watch it on YouTube to fully appreciate the voice inflections, facial expressions and body language. Two takeaways: Prince could play more than music, and proved the gracious host with a pancake breakfast. I’ll leave you with this reflection from Murphy: “I kinda learned something that day. Don’t ever judge a book by its cover. This cat can ball, man! He was crossing — crossed me up. He was getting rebounds like Charles Barkley.”

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60

Games

50

Fun & Games

70

Culture

90

Cover Story

Anthony Harrison: Having attended games

New question: Which subject would you like to see TCB write about more on the cover? Vote at triad-city-beat.com!

I’ve become a bit of an Airbnb evangelist after two trips this spring: one to a treehouse in Asheville, and another this past weekend to a renovated bus in Pittsboro, both ridiculously cheap and beautifully strange places to sleep. More than that, though, I’m an evangelist for traveling around North Carolina alone.

I think the impetus to my obsession with mini solo adventures can be traced back to last spring, when Raleigh-based songwriter Jess Ray’s song “Headed for the Hills” was released. As I listened to it on repeat in the basement cubicle where I used to work, I began to crave the escapism the song alluded to, and started planning my getaway without quite understanding the spell the song had cast on me.

At last I understood when sitting at the base of the Graveyard Fields waterfall, water misting my face. I’m so driven and people-oriented that to sit still, alone, for an hour, was nothing short of wild, not to mention that the prevalence of Instagram-friendly group vacations make the idea of exploring somewhere alone appear sad or dangerous. It is neither, and now that it’s a habit, I’m not sure I could stay sane without these escapes.

Part of the magic of such a getaway is that they afford me autonomy separate from my daily goings-on of choosing what to buy at the grocery store. I’m talking about the autonomy of picking a nearby town on my GPS, driving down unfamiliar roads and eating dinner at the bar of an old-timey soda shop just because the fancy struck me. Or getting badly beaten at Mario Kart by a stranger at a brewery. Or climbing Mount Pisgah at golden hour, savoring a private view at the summit, making memories that aren’t shared but have no less significance in their solitude. Freedom like that is possibly one of life’s greatest highs.

The best part of running away alone, though, has to be the reminder of how simple it actually is to be alive. It takes me by surprise every time. I typically bring several philosophical books and my journal, anticipating some deeply profound revelations for whatever angst or stress is the flavor of the day, but they usually go untouched.

Instead, somewhere along a three-hour drive, I’m slurping a chocolate milkshake, my shoes are off, I’m obnoxiously harmonizing with the Dixie Chicks, and I transcend needing to know the answers to all my questions without even noticing; enjoying my very existence, with all of the clutter cleared away.

Opinion

Jordan Green: Both ballparks are pretty awesome, but BB&T Ballpark feels a little more substantial somehow. I dunno. This is a hard call.

Readers: Y’all said, and by a pretty decent margin, that NewBridge Bank Park is the Triad’s best. The Greensboro Grasshoppers’ home turf beat out the Winston-Salem Dash’s BB&T Ballpark 62 to 38 percent. Interestingly, nobody chose the third option, Other/Unsure/Don’t care, which is rare in our polls. Guess y’all feel strongly enough about this to avoid abstaining!

by Joanna Rutter

News

Brian Clarey: Allow me to waffle here, please.

Because while I think that Winston-Salem’s BB&T Ballpark looks fantastic and has a more inspiring presence than Greensboro’s NewBridge Bank Park, I have never seen a game there. I have, however, seen dozens of Grasshoppers games from just about every vantage point, from the private boxes to the dugout. I’ve got friends who contributed artwork when it was built way back in 2005 — which seems like an impossibly long time ago.

at both ballparks — something I’m not sure my colleagues can claim — I’m gonna vote for BB&T Ballpark. It certainly beats NewBridge Bank Park as far as capacity goes, which may be unfair, seeing as the Winston-Salem Dash are an A-Advanced minor-league club (a higher ranking than the Hoppers). But it also has better food, Foothills Brewery beer, more parking and a really lovely view of the Winston-Salem skyline. NewBridge Bank Park faces the wrong way; all you can see is Roy Carroll’s stupid apartments.

Up Front

Welp, it’s that time of year again. So we roped our sports writer in, asked our old-man editors, and polled you good folks. Here’s what we walked away with (though I have to say, Brian and Jordan’s noncommittal stances are disappointing — for the record, Eric Ginsburg sat this week out to allow Anthony in, but he would’ve chosen the Winston-Salem Dash’s home turf).

Solo getaways

triad-city-beat.com

Best Triad ballpark?

40

Shot in the Triad

30 20 10

Greensboro Grasshoppers

38%

Winston-Salem Dash

All She Wrote

62%

My latest getaway spot in Pittsboro: a renovated bus my host purchased on eBay.

JOANNA RUTTER

7

April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

8

NEWS

Hair-care product company reboots storied Whitaker Park

by Jordan Green

The repurposed Whitaker Park, once RJ Reynolds’ flagship cigarette factory, gets its first tenant, a hair-care product manufacturer that uses a protein developed by a local biotech firm.

The company, Reason To Believe, is taking over RJ Reynolds’ former lab, which was renovated with funds from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement by cigarette manufacturers.

The fact that Alpha Keratin 60ku, the essential component in Reason To Believe’s hair-care product line, was developed by Wake Forest University cemented founder Melisse Shaban’s commitment to Winston-Salem when it came time for the company to open an ingredient manufacturing facility.

The fact that lab space was available in the repurposed Whitaker Park, a massive complex that was once RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s flagship factory near the university campus, was also a major selling point.

“It’s very interesting because you know it’s an old RJR facility that there’s an amazing amount of infrastructure,” Shaban said. “They have wet and dry areas. And it was quite stunning: It wasn’t the newest equipment you’ve ever seen, but there would be no way that we would be able to afford all of that on our own. They didn’t suffer from not having working capital at RJR. It was all in working order. It just needed to be dusted off, and to have some sage burned.”

Finally, the passage of HB2 by the state General Assembly reinforced Shaban’s desire to establish an inclusive work culture in Winston-Salem rather than deterring her company’s investment.

“We’re not running away from North Carolina,” said Shaban, whose company is headquartered in Raleigh. “We’re running to North Carolina because we believe we can affect things like HB2 by building jobs.”

She added that the company is committed to hiring veterans.

As the first tenant of the Whitaker Park Development Authority, Reason To Believe held its grand opening on April 21. The company currently employs

seven people in ingredient manufacturing, quality control, product evaluation, process development and materials furnishing. Shaban said the company plans to take on additional space in the summer, and will likely double the size of its workforce by the end of the year. In the best-case scenario — or “nirvana,” as Shaban put it — she said Reason To Believe could be employing “a couple hundred people” at Whitaker Park in the next five years.

The Whitaker Park lab was running test pilots and calibrating machines last week. By the end of this week, Shaban said she expects the lab to be turning out product for the company’s new haircare line.

Reason To Believe’s grand opening as the first tenant of the repurposed Whitaker Park is a seismic event for a city whose identity is closely tied to the once-mighty RJ Reynolds Tobacco. The massive facility due north of Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum and east of Wake Forest University was state of the art for the industry when it opened in 1961 as the flagship factory for a company that was then the largest cigarette manufacturer in the nation.

Now largely vacant, the complex lines the pristine Reynolds Boulevard, covering more than 150 acres. The largest facility on the complex, Building 601-1, stretches the length of three conventional city blocks and covers 720,876 square feet, while nearby a dozen additional buildings with access to rail cover a combined 1.2 million square feet. The much smaller Building 630-2, which hosts Reason To Believe, was built in 1989 as RJ Reynolds Tobacco’s research and development lab. The plant closed around 2011, as Reynolds American completed the shift of its manufacturing workforce to a newer facility in suburban Tobaccoville.

“Whitaker Park generated thousands of jobs when it was booming,” Winston-Salem City Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, who represents the North Ward, where the facility is located, said in an interview. “I worked there as a tour guide during my summers in

Technicians at Reason To Believe inspect an extraction tank at the company’s new ingredient manufacturing facility at Whitaker Park.

college. My brother worked there as a mechanic; he’s no longer alive. My brother-in-law worked there. We’re looking forward to bringing back that vibrancy; back when it was there, there were lots of mom-and-pop businesses and stores all over the North Ward.

During lunchtime it was like downtown is today any day of the week.”

Adams added that virtually every family with longstanding ties to Winston-Salem had at least one member working for Reynolds at one time or another.

RJ Reynolds’ donation of part of Whitaker Park — totaling more than 1.7 million square feet of space and about 125 acres — to the new Whitaker Park Development Authority is one of the largest corporate donations in the history of North Carolina. The development authority launched in 2011 as a partnership between Winston-Salem Business Inc., the Winston-Salem Alliance and Wake Forest University. The Golden Leaf Foundation, created to administer half of North Carolina’s share of the Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco manufacturers, awarded a $1.7 million grant to the development authority to renovate Building 630-2

JORDAN GREEN

and purchase equipment leased to Reason To Believe.

The technology for the ingredient processed by Reason To Believe at Whitaker Park — Alpha Keratin 60ku, a building block of hair, skins and nails — was developed by the Winston-Salem biotech firm KeraNetics through a $30 million research investment.

Shaban said at first she didn’t envision her company manufacturing the key ingredient, but eventually came to see that it would need to be part of their business strategy.

“Winston-Salem has done like places like upstate New York — it’s created scenarios and opportunities where it’s easily accessible for companies to get started,” she said. “They’ve created grants and opportunities; they’ve created terrific menus of options. They’ve done a terrific job: It’s not as though you have to go down one silo and things get tied up in red tape. They’ve made it very easy to do business.”

Shaban said that whether damaged hair is frizzy or thick and coarse, the protein carries a self-regulating capacity that addresses the specific need of each hair type.

“With the tens of millions of dollars

triad-city-beat.com Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

that has been spent on this technology, this protein knows where to go,” she said. “It finds the damaged site, and where it’s not needed it washes out. The more damaged the hair is, the better the protein is.”

The keratin goes through about five stages at the Whitaker Park facility, from extracting the protein from bags of human hair in tanks that use centrifugal force to separate liquids from solids, purification of both powder and liquid concentrate products, quality control to ensure consistency, and research and development to optimize processes.

Erin Falco, head of research and development, showed off a series of humidity chambers during a tour of the facility last week. Falco tests different hair types with humidity set to mimic a typical North Carolina summer. The tests utilize hair with Reason To Believe’s product and competing products, along with the hair of someone who doesn’t use any product as a control.

“What’s really cool about our molecule is it comes from hair so it’s recognizable by hair,” Falco said. “So we can truly restore hair.”

Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Controversial HB2 law hurts workers too, lawyer says

by Eric Ginsburg

The public debate around HB2 has largely ignored provisions that have sweeping implications for a wide swath of workers in North Carolina, reaching far beyond gender expression and identity.

As a preface to his remarks, employment lawyer David Puryear noted that the entirety of the law known as HB2 that passed in emergency session by the state legislature qualifies as “the worst kind of political pandering to our worst instincts.”

Sitting in his Adams Farm law office in southwest Greensboro, Puryear roundly condemned all of HB2, often referred to as “the bathroom bill,” a law portrayed as a rapid reaction to an anti-discrimination ordinance recently passed in Charlotte. But as Puryear quickly realized, “It’s pretty clear that it says a great many things that have nothing to do with bathrooms or who may use them.”

Instead, the law includes provisions that have serious ramifications for workers throughout the state, especially when it comes to their ability to file a lawsuit in state court for discriminatory firing.

The law isn’t just aimed at restricting someone from filing such a state suit claiming to have been fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity, Puryear said; HB2 blocks anyone from suing for wrongful termination on the grounds of any type of discrimination, be it race, national origin, disability, sex, age or religion. State law didn’t explicitly protect against wrongful termination on the basis of sexual orientation before the law, Puryear said, though it could be argued that it is covered under “sex,” but HB2 cut any debate on the matter short.

North Carolina workers can still bring discriminatory firing cases at the federal level, but Puryear said the process is much more difficult and restrictive.

Among other things, federal complaints must be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the most recent discriminatory employment act, and cases are then investigated to determine if the alleged victim has a right to sue, Puryear said. Other technical aspects make the

process more cumbersome for plaintiffs, and there are caps on possible damages plaintiffs can recover, he said. Prior to HB2, residents could bring cases in state court within three years rather than 180 days, the technical restrictions were looser and no cap on damages existed.

In other words, the state provided much better protections to workers who were wrongfully fired — except when it came to sexual orientation — than the federal route does, and HB2 eliminated a key remedy for discriminatory treatment, Puryear said.

“I talk to people every day who’ve been fired whose main concern is the deep sense of unfairness that they didn’t deserve this,” Puryear said, adding that now he’ll be forced to tell more people that he can’t help them.

That’s not the only way that HB2 undermines workers’ rights. Some attention around the law has acknowledged that municipalities are explicitly barred from raising the minimum wage above the state threshold of $7.25/hour, though this does not affect the ability of cities to raise the floor for their own employees, as Greensboro has done.

Puryear condemned that portion of the law as well, arguing that if cities realize that their cost of living is significantly higher than places such as Bertie County, they should be empowered to act.

HB2 limits local governments in other ways, too.

The law bans cities from requiring private contractors that work with the city to pay a living wage, Greensboro City Attorney Tom Carruthers said, adding that he believes it’s doubtful Greensboro would have tried to do so anyway. Carruthers said his read on the new law says the city can still require those it contracts with not to discriminate on the basis of race, sex and other previously protected classes of people, though no such protection exists for gender identity or expression, he said.

The full impact on other municipal-level anti-discrimination practices in unclear — Carruthers said he is doing research to understand whether the law affects portions of the city’s Minority & Women’s Business Enterprises, or MWBE program. The Greensboro City

Greensboro lawyer David Puryear talks to people every day who say they’ve been the victim of a discriminatory firing.

Council frequently discusses the importance of MWBE participation in city contracts, and residents have repeatedly raised concerns that the city doesn’t provide enough anti-discrimination protections for businesses owned by women and people of color that want to participate in city contracting. Carruthers said that the city is explicitly permitted to maintain MWBE participation requirements when it comes to construction contracts that are $300,000 and above, adding that “the vast majority of the MWBE program survives.”

Though HB2 limits the ability of municipalities to raise the citywide minimum wage or require a living wage at companies it contracts with, the law does not affect economic development incentives, Carruthers said. That’s significant, as the city of Greensboro frequently issues incentive grants based on job creation at a specific salary mark, such as the creation of six jobs paying an average of $70,000. Carruthers called the law “overreach.”

Puryear said there are more ramifications that are unclear or concerning. He said the law appears to allow businesses to discriminate against employees and

ERIC GINSBURG

customers alike on any grounds without any remedy under state law. That could apply to a cab company that won’t pick up riders from gay bars or a racist employer who only hires white people, Puryear said.

He speculated that state lawmakers included the anti-worker provisions in order to secure support from business conservatives for the law, which many commentators suggest is aimed at whipping up fanatic support from the Republican base in the upcoming election. But the opposite could just as easily be true — the controversial “bathroom bill” portion of the law provides cover for what would otherwise likely be a very unpopular anti-worker law, which could remain in place if the anti-trans part of the law is struck down in court based on how HB2 is written.

Regardless of the specifics, Puryear said the implications are concerning.

“It’s distressing that they took these sorts of steps without any discussion… about what the implications were, although I believe that whoever wrote the language knew exactly what the consequences were,” he said.

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April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

HPU survey on food hardship reinforces national study

by Jordan Green

A survey on food hardship completed by High Point University echoes the findings of a national survey that ranked the Greensboro-High Point metro area No. 1 in the country for food hardship. Food justice advocates in High Point and Greensboro are hoping that more refined local data will help them focus their efforts more effectively.

Joe Blosser, the director of service learning at High Point University and a member of the planning team at the Greater High Point Food Alliance, has encountered a lot of people who don’t believe it’s possible that the Greensboro-High Point metro area has the highest level of food hardship in the United States.

The finding came out of a poll by the Gallup organization that was published by the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center 12 months ago.

“From the work that I do, working with the community partners and working with the students, we’ve seen skepticism towards the numbers because a lot of people don’t see food hardship as part of their daily lives,” Blosser said.

“It’s possible to live in Guilford County and not see poverty.

“In High Point, if you take a left or a right off Main Street you don’t have to go very far to see poverty in the community,” he added.

A new survey conducted by High Point University in early April and published by the university last week seems to confirm the findings of the nationwide survey published a year ago by the Food Research and Action Center, Blosser said. The High Point University researchers asked the same question to adults with landlines or cell phones representing 776 households in High Point and the surrounding communities of Jamestown, Archdale and Trinity as their national counterparts at Gallup: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”

The Greensboro-High Point metro’s No. 1 ranking for food hardship came from a finding by Gallup that

27.9 percent of respondents said that at some time in the past year they had not had enough money to buy the food their families needed. The High Point University researchers found that 23 percent of respondents answered yes to the same question.

Blosser said he considers the difference between the two figures to be within “the margin of error.”

The findings also provide a good indication that hunger is not limited to High Point, the smaller of the two cities in the metro area, Blosser said.

“High Point probably seems on par with Greensboro,” Blosser said. “The data didn’t come back that High Point was 40 percent, so Greensboro must be less. It validates the people in Greensboro to say it’s a problem across the county. We’re not bringing down the averages.”

A notable disparity that didn’t surprise Blosser and others in the Greater High Point Food Alliance at all emerged among the three ZIP codes that cover High Point. In the city’s poorest ZIP code, 27260 — cutting a diagonal swath from northeast to southwest through the heart of the city — 48 percent of respondents answered yes to the question about not having enough money sometime in the past 12 months to buy the food their families needed.

In 27262, which covers the west side of the city including the affluent Emerywood neighborhood, the percentage was 26 percent, while in 26265 on the prosperous north side, the figure was 14 percent.

Blosser said the food alliance was already targeting much of its efforts to 26260, where most of the city’s food deserts are located.

The Guilford Food Council and the Greensboro Community Food Task Force are developing a similar study for Greensboro. Marianne LeGreco, an associate professor at UNCG, said the “community-based measure for food hardship” will be conducted by the Center for Housing and Community Studies, an outfit led by assistant sociology professor Stephen Sills.

Concrete lawn deer stand guard over a community garden on RC Baldwin Avenue in east-central High Point.

LeGreco said she thinks the Gallup poll published by the Food Research Action Center was of limited use in that it only asked one question. She added, “It turned our attention that there might be a problem, but it doesn’t help us make decisions.”

The two city-based hunger studies, along with a community health assessment by Guilford County and the Cone Health Foundation that is currently underway, hold more promise, LeGreco said.

“We can triangulate the data, so we can look at it from multiple directions,” she said.

The High Point University survey drilled down to more specific questions for respondents who indicated they had not had enough money to buy the food they needed for their families sometime in the past 12 months. In one instance, respondents were read the statement, “The food that I/we bought just didn’t last, and I/we didn’t have money to get more,” and then asked to say whether that was “often,” “sometimes” or never true.”

Seven percent of respondents said that was often true, while 17 percent said it was sometimes true.

Another statement read, “I/we couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals.”

Nine percent of respondents said that statement was often true, while 15

JORDAN GREEN

percent said it was sometimes true.

The survey found that 18 percent of respondents said they ate less than they felt they should have because there wasn’t enough money for food sometime in the past 12 months, while 12 percent said they didn’t eat even though they were hungry.

Blosser said in some ways the High Point University survey only raises more questions. Only eight out of 771 — or 1 percent — respondents said they had received backpacks filled with food, so it’s hard for activists to get a sense of how long the food lasts and how significant an impact it makes on the families that are the beneficiaries.

“Backpacks are a big deal in Guilford County,” Blosser said. “There are lots of programs that are sending backpacks of food home with kids. But we don’t really have enough respondents to say they were getting backpacks to get a solid answer. We need to go into schools.

“We hear a lot about backpacks,” he continued. “But it’s only hitting 1 percent of households that are experiencing food hardship. But not all those households have children. So we’d like to see what percentage of households with food hardship that have children are getting the backpacks.”

The food alliance held its second food summit in March. Blosser said he considers the organization’s first year to be

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a success because people who operate different projects like food pantries and backpack programs are now talking to each other. The alliance has launched a High Point food finder app with information about emergency assistance, food pantries, community gardens and hot meals, along with information about ways to donate money and volunteer.

Going into its second year, Blosser said he expects the food alliance to focus more on offering cooking classes and helping people to establish community gardens.

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April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

It’s time

It’s been more than two years since Chieu-di Thi Vo took a fatal bullet from the gun of a Greensboro police officer.

It was a grisly scene, we’re told: Out on the front lawn, Vo, 47 years old and diagnosed as bipolar, came at Officer TJ Bloch with a knife. Bloch ordered her to stop. Vo, who didn’t speak English, kept coming. Bloch fired five times.

Vo went down and didn’t get up. Her mother was standing there the whole time.

And though a video camera on Bloch’s uniform captured the entire episode, the only history we have of that day is the official one, written from a specific point of view.

Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Miller contended that the footage was classified as a part of a personnel file back in 2014 — protected under public records law — and Mayor Nancy Vaughan was unable to whip enough votes on council to have the video made public.

Now she’s got another shot.

Council will vote on Tuesday, May 3 on whether the Vo footage will be released to the public. This time they must get it right.

A lot has happened in the two years since the shooting.

Bloch left the force, according to an article in the News & Record, and we as a nation have begun to come to grips with police body cameras and their proper use. Whether one believes that every minute of the footage recorded on them is public record, or that officers should somehow be protected from this type of scrutiny doesn’t really matter at this point. It is inevitable that footage from police body cameras will one day be properly classified as public record. It might as well be, because everybody’s recording everything on their cell phones anyway.

And the fact is that objective footage of police interactions gone wrong likely protects officers from false accusations as often as it convicts them. As body cameras proliferate, the bad actors in our police departments will either knock it off, knowing they will be held accountable for their actions, or be forced out.

Nevertheless, every second of footage recorded by the body cameras is public record, paid for on the public dime and worn by the people we pay to maintain law and order.

We must insist on it.

Without the intervention of an engaged citizenry, this issue could easily take a dark turn. Even now the NC General Assembly is planning to enact HB2-like legislation preventing cities from calling their own shots on this issue.

Like many other laws passed by this crew, this one looks illegal on its face.

Soon enough, the arc of justice will bend toward the light. In Greensboro, it needs to start right now. Two years is already too long to wait.

CITIZEN GREEN

Beware the return of the neocons During every presidential election year, as the top of the ticket takes shape, a dance begins between the national-security establishment and the politicians, who heretofore have been focused more on fashioning

by Jordan Green sweeping rhetorical appeals than worrying about the nitty-gritty details of governing.

So when two exponents of the neoconservative school — favoring aggressive, interventionist foreign policy — surface in Greensboro, of all places, it’s probably worth hearing what they have to say. James Woolsey, director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995, was a signatory to a 1998 letter urging President Bill Clinton to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — a view that eventually prevailed under President George W. Bush in 2003. John Lenczowski is the former director of European and Soviet affairs at the National Security Council, and founder and president of the Institute of World Politics in Washington, where Woolsey now serves as chancellor.

Considering the current political climate, we might yet mercifully be spared of their influence in Washington. Lenczowski indicated he’s not much of a fan of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, calling the Obama administration’s decision to provide lethal aid to the rebels in Libya a “promiscuous military intervention.”

The New York Times recently described the Libya intervention as arguably Clinton’s “moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.”

“You’d think that this president who was skeptical about our intervention in Iraq in 2003 would have learned the lesson, but he didn’t,” Lenczowski sniffed during a luncheon attended by 800 people at Grandover Resort & Conference Center.

For his part, Woolsey all but accused President Obama of appeasement, referencing recent tensions between the United States and Russia in the Baltic Sea. “And I guess I would have to be candid in saying — in having a sense that we’re being led by Neville Chamberlain,” Woolsey said, referring to prime minister of Great Britain in the late 1930s. “If you are a really powerful country and you have a number of allies, you can speak softly and carry a big stick. As Teddy Roosevelt put it, you do not have to yak about it. If you send a couple of aircraft carriers and a bunch of destroyers into the Baltic when the Russians behave the way they did, the Russians will take note and, one would hope, back off. But they aren’t going to back off if they don’t think you have the will to do anything. And that is the

problem. We face a situation in which we have lost a good chunk of our credibility, and we need to regain it.”

Asked by a senior at Salisbury High School which presidential candidate is likely to have the best strategic plan to confront threats from Russia and the Middle East, Woolsey didn’t name a preference, but called for a leader who projects strength — someone like Ronald Reagan, whom the former CIA director credited with ending the Iran hostage crisis.

“I’m not real enthusiastic frankly about either of the finalist candidates,” he said, “but I think one important criterion that everyone ought to think about is, is this person someone that is going to be able to exert that kind of Reagan-esque influence from reputation and ability?”

The convener of the luncheon was Dr. Aldona Wos, Greensboro resident, former ambassador to Estonia and, until Aug. 4, 2015, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. A prominent Republican fundraiser and wife of shipping and logistics impresario Louis DeJoy, Wos appears to be making her own pivot as the political winds shift. Wos presided over a health and human services department in Raleigh that was plagued by chronic disruptions to food-stamp benefits across the state and the disastrous implementation of a new Medicaid billing system. Wos abruptly resigned during a tearful announcement with Gov. Pat McCrory only days after federal prosecutors served subpoenas on her agency as part of a grand jury investigation into the hiring of high-priced consultants, according to a report by the News & Observer. A spokesperson for the office of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina told Triad City Beat he could neither confirm nor deny whether any investigation is currently taking place.

Wos gives the impression she wouldn’t mind another high-profile appointment in the federal government.

“We’ll have to do our homework and see how between all this intellectual power in the room — see how we in our professional capacities can move this along,” she said, after listening to a sobering warning from Woolsey and Lenczowski about the danger of North Korea exploding a nuclear weapon in space and dismantling the US power grid.

“Jim said, ‘If it ever comes down to having to go to war with North Korea, he would appoint you to be the four-star general,’” Lenczowski quipped, prompting uproarious laughter.

At one point, Wos summarized Lenczowski’s response to a high school student’s question by saying, “If you know history and you study history you are less likely to repeat mistakes.”

About that fact there is no dispute.

Thinking Fink

Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

Andrea Littell is a freelance writer and photographer living in Winston-Salem.

Find her latest stories and handpicked Winston-Salem happenings each week at towniesws.com.

Opinion

in his shoes, fellow downtown restaurant owners knew they had to do something to help. As Vivian Joiner of Sweet Potatoes, who has taken the lead on organizing volunteers has said, “None of us are alone and we wanted to let Mike know he is not alone.” She speaks to one of the greatest gifts we have to give in this life: the opportunity to remind one another that our lives matter.

Nearly a dozen restaurant owners and chefs have banded together to reopen Skippy’s and run the space voluntarily for a week with Mike’s blessing, include Joiner of Sweet Potatoes; Will Kingery of Willows Bistro, Kings Crab Shack and Silo; Mary Haglund of Mary’s Gourmet Diner; and Opie Kirby of Finnegans Wake. From the outside, one might think of these restaurateurs as competitors but thanks to the spirit of a tight-knit community they simply see each other as neighbors and friends.

Each day a different restaurant owner or chef is taking the helm to raise funds to help support Mike with his costly treatments, supported by a staff of volunteers coming out from across Winston-Salem’s hospitality industry, as well as Good Samaritans that answered the call. The menu will include Skippy’s popular Chicago and Reuben dogs and each restaurant is having fun offering up its own specialty hot dog of the day.

In a statement on a GoFundMe page created for him, his niece shared that for Mike, Skippy’s success was never measured by any monetary value, but by the vibe and community that he was able to create through the restaurant. This week that vibe and community is evident with lines out the door and folks coming from all over to contribute and show their support. Mike has created his own tasty legacy in this town.

This story should remind us that we the people define our community and that in the end, beliefs and differences aside, we are still one. Stories like Mike’s Week, and countless others like it, are the bright spots that remind us that when kindness is considered newsworthy it will only inspire more of the same.

News

Real change happens at the community level when we take a vested interest in one another as neighbors and

by Andrea Littell work together instead of against; real change happens when we shift anger, fear, jealousy and pride to sincere curiosity, honesty, gratitude and love, and when we realize we are all in this together Every day the news reminds us that we are a divided nation, and after decades of being fed a diet of division and distrust, it could be said that we are now disconnected as a society. But I don’t believe that’s entirely true. I still believe we are better than that and I see evidence of our humanity and connectedness everyday.

A perfect example: This week in Winston-Salem is Mike’s Week. It is a celebration of local business owner Mike Rothman and his popular downtown restaurant, Skippy’s Hot Dogs on West Fourth Street.

At the end of this week the doors of his business will close for good, marking the end of a space and place loved by many. I know I can speak for many Winston-Salemites in saying that Mike’s famous dogs on his pretzel buns are already sorely missed.

But the soul of this story is about much more than the closing of a popular hot dog joint; it is about the generosity of a community that transformed devastating news into something uplifting and meaningful in support of a struggling neighbor.

As a small business, the operation of Skippy’s has relied on owner Mike Rothman’s presence. But this week, as countless folks line up at the door and thousands of hot dogs are sold, Mike is not there manning the grill. This week as crowds fill his eatery, he is resting in Pennsylvania with his parents as he recovers from surgery and bravely battles an aggressive form of brain cancer. He is, however, watching everything unfold via social media.

Following his recent diagnosis and subsequent relocation to Pennsylvania to be close to family during rehabilitation and treatment, Mike was sadly forced to close the doors to the place he had run for more than a decade. With mounting medical bills, it can be devastating to lose your sole source of income. Putting themselves

Up Front

I ran into Eric Fink in downtown Greensboro last week as he and a campaign staffer talked strategy at the Green Bean.

Fink has been a reliable voice for working people and a dependable expert source in our journalism for years, and now he’s making a move to run against state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger Sr. by petitioning his way onto the ballot in Rockingham County and the parts

by Brian Clarey of Guilford that fall into District 26. He’ll need 5,000 signatures of voters in the district to make it happen. With a seasoned crew of organizers on the team, he says he’s well on his way.

He told me that his candidacy started out as a statement of sorts: Part of the problem we’re having in our state is that the entrenched powers often run unopposed. Sen. Berger is currently serving his eighth term in the state Senate. Before Fink stepped up, he was running unopposed, as he did in 2010, 2008 and 2004. In 2002 he faced a Libertarian candidate. Against weak Democrats, though, Berger’s fared pretty will, usually winning by 20 points or so — in 2012 that meant about 20,000 votes, with fewer than 100,000 participating in the election.

But that means that Berger has won fully half of his elections without serious competition. Seeing this, Fink started to believe he might have a chance. His time in in the district, where he’s lived for almost a decade, has only strengthened this belief.

And while I never really thought of Fink as a candidate — for starters, he’s got to lose the name — it does make a sort of sense.

In an election year where outsiders are looking to topple legacy candidates all over the board and where, in North Carolina anyway, it seems just about anything can happen, Fink could even win it, though it’s a pretty long shot.

He’d need to take all the Greensboro precincts in the northwest quadrant of the city, capture the two Rockingham precincts that Berger lost in 2014 and tap into backlash against HB2 to topple a few of the close ones, most of which Berger lost by just a couple hundred votes. He’d need to ride Sen. Bernie Sanders’ coattails going into Election Day — assuming that Bernie is going to be on the ticket in November, which itself is looking doubtful — because Fink’s politics mesh well with the rabble-rouser from Brooklyn, and Sanders pulled more than 3,000 votes out of Rockingham in the 2016 primary, trailing Hillary Clinton by about a thousand.

Remember, too, that in 2008, Kay Hagan took Rockingham away from incumbent US Sen. Elizabeth Dole by about 100 votes.

It’s all very interesting. And I’m not saying that Fink will upset Berger on Election Day. But he just might.

We the people are still one

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15

April 27 — May3, 2016

Life in Greensboro’s sweet spot

by Eric Ginsburg

Cover Story

I hesitate to tell you this story.

We may not know each other very well, you and I, and so this requires a small leap of faith on my part.

That’s because, in a way, this is a story about an endangered species, one that very much belongs in the wild and not suffocating in a zoo, or taxidermied and shoved in the back corner of a museum. And while telling you about it may, as I hope, lead to a greater understanding of its importance and ultimately its preservation, it could also encourage you and yours to want to come claim a piece of it for yourself.

Do not consider this as such an invitation.

16

The community where I live is not a neighborhood by traditional standards; it doesn’t have a name or a neighborhood association, and it’s truly not big enough to be considered a neighborhood in its own right.

Mark Purvis, a 47-year-old who’s spent most his life in the area, calls it “Cedar Street Estates”. Six years ago, when I moved into the apartment next door to him, my roommate Lamar Gibson and I dubbed our second-story home “Cedar Estates,” oblivious to Purvis’ moniker. It felt like the right calling card for our 800-square-foot apartment on a hill, a modest and cheap two-bedroom unit that in most respects is wholly unremarkable but to us warranted a sort of elevated and dignified status.

Most people don’t call it anything. Our neighborhood along the western boundary of downtown Greensboro is more of a transitional area, not quite center city and yet at arm’s length from the Westerwood neighborhood, where the use of the term “estate” could be taken more literally.

When giving directions to the house she owns across the street from Purvis, Liz Fitzpatrick often mentions the liquor store at the corner of Cedar and Friendly; if she just offers the street name, the other party will generally bring up the ABC store anyway. When people ask where I live, I usually say near the Grasshoppers stadium downtown.

In a 2005 strategic plan generated for the area, the city plainly refers to this as the Cedar Street/Bellemeade area.

That’s the last time the powers that be took a serious look at our community. For the most part we go unnoticed, and that’s just the way we like it.

I moved into my apartment upstairs from Purvis’ parents in 2010, just a couple months after graduating from college.

When Gibson moved out a year later, the neighborhood had already settled beneath his skin, and he found a duplex

across the street and a couple doors down from Cedar Estates. My friend Michael Daye, like Gibson a Greensboro native, quickly claimed his old room, and we lived together for three and a half years until Michael decided to challenge himself and picked up for Atlanta. I couldn’t imagine replacing him as a roommate, but when I looked at one-bedroom apartments in the city, I realized staying put would actually be cheaper.

After six years, I’m still here. And so is Gibson. But when my girlfriend Kacie and I decided to live together, it seemed that my Cedar Street era would come to a close. We needed more space, we figured, somewhere that felt like a new beginning. We seriously considered Winston-Salem, but later narrowed our search to a few satellite neighborhoods in downtown Greensboro.

But as our intended May 1 moving date drew closer, Kacie said she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this apartment.

And summer is the season for Cedar Estates, she said. It’s not time to leave, she said — not yet.

Now there are boxes of her books, winter clothes and kitchen supplies stacked up in my bedroom, our bedroom come Sunday. On the other side of the wall, I can hear painters finishing up a fresh second coat in the bathroom.

As I recommit to the Cedar Street area, and start a new chapter here, I can’t help but think about the changes I’ve witnessed in the last six years. I worry, and always have, about what this area will become. Someday, we’re told, the Downtown Greenway will run alongside the property I live on, claiming part of it for a wider sidewalk and blocking the Cedar outlet onto Smith Street, creating a cul-de-sac in our front yard. As breweries, a restaurant, grocery stores and, maybe most significantly, new apartments change the face of the lower Fisher Park area, or LoFi, I fear that the high percentage of renters in this area will be priced out. Fitzpatrick, who bought her home in 2003 as a college sophomore, is concerned, too, pointing to development in what’s being called Midtown on Battleground Avenue creeping towards the LoFi area. Will North Cedar Street be squeezed in the middle?

This is so much more than a typical story of affordable housing vs. gentrification, of winners and losers or “the greater good.” It’s about a pocket neighborhood that is akin to an endangered species, a refuge, and fertile ground for the most beautiful aspects of the city as a whole.

I’ve been trying since I moved here to pin down what it is about the Cedar Street area that makes it magical, that illuminates our community’s character. So I asked my neighbors and friends what our neighborhood means to them.

To community organizer Wesley Morris, who worked at the Beloved Community Center until he moved to New

Liz Fitzpatrick, who bought her house on North Cedar Street w

York a couple years ago to attend Union Theological Seminary, his Cedar Street apartment was the first place that really felt like his own. He put up Brazilian and African liberation flags on his wall, and often walked across the hall to hang out with his co-worker and proverbial big brother Joseph Frierson. The two would invite friends over for cookouts, leaving both their doors open for a free flow of people between their apartments. Other times, Morris would sit on the front porch of the building, looking at the trees on the street or talking to neighbors who’d already tied one on as they walked back from the liquor store a few blocks south.

Morris left an apartment near the intersection of Battleground Avenue and New Garden Road in northwest Greensboro seeking proximity to downtown and people.

“I was missing a bit of community that I really desired,” he told me as we sat in his apartment shortly before he moved.

“When I came here there was just a vibe.”

He described the neighborhood as “a judgment-free

The November 2005 Cedar Street/Bellemeade area strategic plan defines the area as within the bounds of Friendly and Battleground avenues to the south and north and Eugene Street, and the train tracks running

by Westerwood Tavern to the east and west. But to me it’s much smaller, defined by the tracks, Friendly Avenue, and Spring and Smith streets, a more heavily residential area. Spring and Smith are too busy thoroughfares for this little neighborhood to jump over, in my mind. Instead, 200, 300 and 400 blocks of North Cedar Street form the core of the neighborhood, with one-block spurs on Bellemeade Street at the center and another on Guilford Avenue.

Other residents confirmed similar confines, often remarking that they’re unfamiliar with the 500 block of North Cedar, which is on the other side of Smith Street.

while attending UNCG, sits on her front porch that is mostly hidden from the street by trees.

zone,” an outlook that helped him in his own life. Morris would play his ukelele outside to a positive reception, take regular morning walks with Gibson, see a local weatherman walking his dog down the street and ask neighbors for leftover magazines to cut up for his annual vision boards.

Morris, who moved to Greensboro to attend NC A&T University and who lived in a couple places around the city, said the Cedar apartment was the best place he’d lived in town. He quickly found the community he sought, both from work colleagues — besides Frierson, organizer Cherrell Brown briefly lived down the street, and Gibson and I met while interning at the nonprofit as well — and unexpected neighbors. Joya Wesley, the first person Morris met after moving in, brought him some fresh strawberries, he said. They traveled in similar circles and knew of each other, but weren’t friends yet.

Wesley rented an apartment across the street from Morris, on the east side of Cedar, for almost 20 years, ending last summer. When she showed up in 1996, Wesley worked

EIRC GINSBURG

as a part-time copy editor at the News & Record.

“That apartment was like a News & Record legacy apartment,” said Wesley, who now lives in Mobile, Ala. “There was another copy editor who was living in the other side [of the duplex].”

To her point, Wesley learned of the apartment opening through a note in the office. She was going through a divorce and needed a place, and Cedar Street offered a walkable starting point to downtown and UNCG. When she rode the bus, there were four to choose from going westbound, “which is unheard of” in Greensboro, she said.

Wesley described the neighborhood as “bohemian,” a term of endearment that other residents echoed. Eclectic, some said, or tolerant. Most, like me, struggled to articulate exactly what defines our space, instead telling stories about the eccentricities of our neighbors. We point to a house where a flock of plastic flamingos clutter the porch, to the front-yard gardens like one at Fitzgerald’s house; we tell stories of walking down the middle of the street or gazing at

downtown from rooftops.

Former resident Aaron Lake Smith offered one of the best descriptions of the neighborhood, which might not be surprising considering he’s a writer, working for Vice and until recently Al Jazeera. Reached on Monday while in a Swedish airport after being there on assignment, Smith described Greensboro as a place halfway between a city and the country, a transitional place that’s small enough that you can bike down the main street and feel like you own the town, or at least could put a dent in it in some way.

He might as well have been talking about the Cedar Street area.

As a UNCG student, Smith lived just off Cedar on Guilford Avenue in a punk house affectionately known as Fort Asshat. When they started the house around 2003 or 2004, Smith said they came on the heels of an older generation of anarchist punks at the Cedar Street House, an imposing cube of a building on the corner of Cedar and Friendly, directly across the street from the liquor store.

There’s still an anarchist circle-A scratched into the sidewalk in front of the former Cedar Street House, then a hub of the seminal anarchist publishing collective CrimethInc. The building sat vacant for years, but now an unassuming family has taken over. Fort Asshat around the corner also went unoccupied, later becoming a collective house called the Maxxipad full of queer anarchists. When the residents left town, it appeared to be taken over by Greensboro College students who briefly used it as an informal frat house, and now looks to be empty again.

Smith placed his former home in a timeline of successive waves of collective houses and spurts of radical politics in Greensboro, suggesting that efforts carried by students seemed to last three to six years after gleaning some inspiration from a slightly older wave. Like Roman candles, small groups would flare up “but they never quite penetrate the inertia of the place,” he said, adding that this is likely the fate of college towns such as Greensboro.

In a place like this, he said, creating culture and entertainment for yourself is deeply appealing because otherwise there’s not much else besides going to the same coffee

triad-city-beat.com

What is the Cedar Street area?

17

April 27 — May3, 2016 Cover Story

Looking north on Cedar Street, it’s remarkable how much lush green lines the street.

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shop and dive bar. And that, paired with the affordability of the city as a whole and Cedar Street in particular, is probably part of the reason that a DIY and punk attitude has often prevailed here.

A Mormon anarchist, a homeless guy crashing in the living room and people recovering from ailments and addictions learned to live together at Fort Asshat, which is the sort of thing that’s unique to cities like Greensboro, said Smith, who now lives in New York City.

“In New York, you get to choose the people you live around and you choose the people who are closest to you,” he said. “In Greensboro, part of what’s special about it is you learn to get along with and work with people who are deeply different than you.”

The more Smith described his former city, the more I realized that the Cedar Street area appeals to me for the same reason that Greensboro does: It’s a microcosm of the diversity, the community, the affordability, the space to stretch your legs, a mix of city and open green space, the unassuming and unpretentious quality.

Cedar Street appealed to young punks who came after Smith, too, including a house of musicians that packed up for Portland, Ore. a few years back and several others — many of them newly minted Guilford College grads — who threw punk shows in their basement. I remember one where a band called the Body seemed to be shaking the foundations of the four-bedroom home. Now graduate students live in the former, and a family has nestled into the latter.

The neighborhood is also defined by several rundown apartment buildings, including one next to the former Cedar Street House owned by a notorious slumlord and another up the street across from Gibson. Tenancy here is even more transient than the students and recent grads, and it isn’t uncommon to see a mangled pile of possessions on the curb that looks like the detritus of an eviction.

But not everyone on the street is transient. When Eleanor Motley’s parents brought her home from the hospital after she was born in 1942, they took her to the house

between where Fitzgerald and Gibson now live. She remembers a mass exodus of families from Cedar Street and the surrounding area to more suburban neighborhoods like Starmount in the early 1950s. After that, the neighborhood grew more racially diverse in the mid ’60s, she said, and over the years has often attracted artists, students and associate professors.

Motley still lives in the same house, and is brimming with stories of people who have come and gone who were incredibly friendly and helped open her mind, including a closeted gay man who lived across the street. Knowing him helped prevent any prejudice that ERIC GINSBURG might’ve taken root in her mind, Motley said, adding that when she attended UNCG, classmates were often surprised at how forward-thinking she was.

“I grew up in a neighborhood that was ahead of its time, in some ways,” she said.

Motley still lives in that same house, though she’s embarrassed by it because she believes the exterior could use a paint job. She’s been going through old photographs lately, and recently found one of “a whole raft of kids” sitting on the front steps for her birthday party, probably at age 4, the same front steps that are still there.

Mark Purvis, across the street, has a similar story, though he’s from a later generation. Purvis grew up in the house I live in; 15 years ago, the landlord for both properties relocated the house from an adjoining lot on Prescott Street, bringing it up the hill to the corner of Cedar and Smith streets, Purvis said. By then, Purvis and his siblings had long since moved out, and landlord Mahlon Honeycutt turned the second floor into a separate apartment.

Charles, Mark’s father, still lives downstairs, Mark’s brother lives around the corner in the only residential property on the stretch of Prescott this side of Smith, and his sister Connie used to live in the other half of Gibson’s duplex.

(After she left, former Triad City Beat sports writer Jeff Laughlin moved in before taking off for New York.)

Family is, not surprisingly, a big draw for Mark Purvis.

He owns his own home-improvement business, and often brings his dad along with him for company. But he also enjoys the closeness to downtown, adding that there’s nowhere like it that is as quiet and as central. Plus — importantly — it’s affordable.

In 2004 and 2005, neighborhood residents started to worry that encroaching development threatened to overrun the character of the neighborhood. Condos erected on Bellemeade Street on the corner of Spring Street could’ve been a harbinger of demolitions and high-priced replacements, residents feared, and nearby rezonings could also jeopardize the neighborhood’s character.

Joya Wesley, who lived right by the condos, helped spearhead a push for the city to create a strategic plan for

the area to preserve its character.

“We had some neighborhood organizing activity going on because we were worried about gentrification when they built the condos on Bellemeade,” she said. “There was some concern that would be the end of the bohemian feel of the neighborhood.”

Motley recalls that she was “extremely concerned” about the future of the neighborhood at the time, and residents correctly feared that the outside perception of their community didn’t align with their own. People described the Cedar area as blighted, and the subsequent city plan noted that residents felt a strong sense of community that outsiders didn’t pick up on.

Residents in neighboring Westerwood, where property values are higher and people appear to be a little pickier about their lawns, feared what would happen in the Cedar Street area too, because — as then Westerwood Neighborhood Association president Marsh Prause reflected — “they realized if the entire Cedar Street area fell, development would be next on Westerwood’s doorstep.”

After city staff completed the neighborhood strategic plan in November 2005, Wesley said residents felt like their neighborhood stood on more protected ground.

And it helped that the economy flat-lined, grinding development to a standstill. The western side of the condo building remains blank to this day, looking almost as if part of it were ripped off by a tornado, but instead construction halted halfway to the corner with Cedar Street.

Wesley spent the better part of her remaining time on the 400 block of North Cedar on the road as the manager for her father, famous trombonist and former James Brown band leader Fred Wesley. When she moved in 2015, Wesley left notes from the 2005 neighborhood organizing efforts with Liz Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald initially lived in the house with other college students, paying the mortgage by waiting tables. Later she lived there with her husband, and then various roommates after the pair split. For the last six months, her mother has lived in the house with her and two dogs.

As Fitzgerald and I sat on her wraparound porch last week, shortly after she cut her dog Bacon’s hair to look like a lion, she said her concerns about protecting the affordability and spirit of the neighborhood persist.

“That plan sort of made me feel like this area is up for grabs,” Fitzgerald said.

Motley later chose similar words.

“I think right now it’s just up for grabs with all the development happening around, and we’ll have to see what happens,” she said. “It’s been a place that people like me can live…. Let’s hope Cedar stays an interesting place for people of various incomes to live.”

While I’m embarrassed to say that after six years this interview served as my first full conversation with Motley, she verbalized my concerns. With new apartment complexes built within sight of my home, what will happen to rents on this street? How will the Downtown Greenway affect the desirability of this area, especially because Cedar Street is inside of the greenway loop? What about developer Marty Kotis’ property grabs in his Midtown commercial district nearby? Or what about the contigu-

Sue Schwartz, the city of Greensboro’s planning director, loves the Cedar Street area.

“It’s the cool and funky part of downtown,” she said. “What a treasure it is.”

ERIC GINSBURG The Cedar Street area has a variety of ERIC GINSBURG Once upon a time, the residents of this house City planners talk about “the missing middle,” called it Fort Asshat. Years later, it functioned as a faux frat. housing options, including this four-plex. meaning the gap between traditional, single-famMahlon Honeycutt. same, Fitzpatrick said. ily homes and denser apartment complexes, Schwartz Purvis rents from him, and so does Gibson even after “I think the affordability of this neighborhood is what said. In several ways, this area is that middle, a transitional relocating down the block. Wesley did when she lived makes it so eclectic and unique and diverse,” she said. area between downtown and Westerwood with four-plex here, as did several other residents including whoever Without that, it would be just like every other neighborapartment buildings, duplexes, single-family and other lives in the Zenke house that Honeycutt brought here hood around it, she said. housing options. She helped collect feedback and design just before the new jail went up downtown. Not only does But that doesn’t mean developers won’t try and cash in the neighborhood plan, and even though it was 11 years he keep it affordable, but he’s responsive and affable. on Cedar Street’s cachet, and Fitzgerald is worried that ago, she still remembers the area as a “charming” and Without him, Kacie and I wouldn’t have decided to stay they are “just waiting to pounce.” “eclectic place,” adding that it has a “unique funk” and here. Indeed, many of us on the street likely wouldn’t have That’s why I was hesitant to tell you about my neighborcharm. had a choice. hood.

We’ve got a good thing going here, and I’m afraid “Every city needs one of those, at least one of those,” There’s been plenty of talk over the years of altering the you’ll ruin it. she said. “It’s one of my favorite places and I’m actually face of Cedar Street and the surrounding area. Purvis and There are downsides to the neighborhood — occasional kinda glad the recession helped it.” other longtime residents easily rattle off ideas that never crime, piles of unwanted belongings on the curb, empty Schwartz easily picked out several attributes that bolster came to fruition, and for his part, Purvis doesn’t know if airplane bottles along the sidewalk, frequent car wrecks at the area’s character — the collection of architecture, large the greenway cul-de-sac will arrive. Not that he’d mind, as nearby intersections on Smith Street.

Most people I talked trees, a portion of younger residents, a good sidewalk syslong as people don’t tear up our shared gravel driveway to agreed that it’s a safe area, though a friend recently tem and closeness to downtown and the baseball stadium. by trying to use it as a cut-through, and his partner Dawn left her Cedar Street apartment after several years when “Downtowns can run the risk of becoming an upper-inis dying to put up a basketball hoop in the dead end once her neighbor across the street, apparently struggling with come enclave,” Schwartz said, adding that people who are its completed. mental health, admitted to sneaking onto her back porch priced out of certain areas but prefer more interaction and The fact that the street is chopped up into many smalland stealing her spare key. style than apartment complexes offer will land in areas er properties, and the fact that Honeycutt owns many of The same day Fitzgerald closed on her house in 2003, such as this. them on the core 400 block of North Cedar, may prevent she heard about a shooting at the brick apartments on Some of the changes are welcome. Mark Purvis can large-scale development, some residents said. But there the west side of the street almost across from her.

Former remember a junkyard in the community, and Deep Roots are still scattered vacant or under-utilized lots, particularly neighborhood residents told me that people once found Market’s relocation to the north end of downtown thrilled on the 200 block. Prause started talking about one that a body behind the former Cedar Street House, and called Joya Wesley. Purvis had his concerns when the greenway would be ideal across Prescott from the greenway cornerit the “Dead Body House.”

As far as I can tell, there’s not cornerstone — a gazebo at the corner of Prescott and stone, and I quickly realized he was speculating about my much veracity to the story, and at the very least Aaron Smith streets — was under construction, but now that it’s extended backyard. As infill projects continue downtown, Lake Smith knows nothing about it.

But if I see you walkfinished, he’s happy with it. including Roy Carroll’s massive development and the hip ing down the street with some surveying equipment, I’ll “I never thought I’d see all this up here,” Purvis said, LoFi area, it’s hard to imagine that those empty spaces will probably tell you the story anyway. gesturing over his shoulder towards the Greenway at remain unnoticed.

But if I think I can trust you, I’ll share other stories about Fisher Park apartments and the complementing complex But despite my fears, the more I talk to my neighbors bounce castles, a nerd house that takes its annual party across Smith Street. “It’s growing, but it’s still taking its the more I realize that we’re all maintaining a vigilant so seriously that it turned me away a couple years back time.” watch, keen on protecting this community that represents because I didn’t have a wristband, a prank war taken too Schwartz said the city’s growth rate is around 2 perour desires for the city at large. Talking to them eased my far and all manner of cookouts.

My neighbors might share cent, adding that “we’re moderately inching up” but that mind, especially when I played back the tape from my intheirs too, about playing hooky under a nearby bridge deGreensboro is still growing at a third of the rate of Charterview with Wesley Morris, his things piled up in his living cades ago, the time police caught a vandal for trespassing lotte and the Triangle. That snail’s pace can be a good room before his move a few years ago. When I asked him after he fell asleep on a rooftop, underground anarchist thing for areas such as Cedar Street, she said. about his hopes or fears for this neighborhood’s future, he literature distros or a motorcycle ride gone wrong.

“I think the steadiness works in our favor too, because offered a reflective and nuanced response that’s typical of I agree with Fitzpatrick — it’s the affordability that there’s not a panic,” Schwartz said, elaborating that people his nature. makes all of this possible.

She, and everyone else I talked aren’t snatching up properties and jacking up prices.

“I think Cedar Street has its own life,” Morris said, “that I to, agreed that one man more than anyone is responsiIf that ever does happen, or if Cedar Street changes wouldn’t want to put my own hopes or my own fears on.” ble for the neighborhood staying intact — my landlord, considerably in price, the neighborhood won’t be the

triad-city-beat.com

ous, vacant lots on the 500-block of North Cedar Street that will supposedly house a new commercial complex? With a high percentage of renters, is this area a prime target for yuppies looking to own or for house flipping?

“Everything around it is being financed from really deep pockets,” Fitzgerald said.

And ours, well… let’s just say the money in most of our pockets is spoken for, if it’s there at all.

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April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE My go-to to-go sandwich spot

by Eric Ginsburg

T

hey claim to have the best chicken salad in town, which definitely isn’t true, and the line for the drive-thru always seems to take an inordinate amount of time, but Sub Station II is my go-to quick lunch spot.

When Triad City Beat opened, moving into the Nussbaum Center just south of downtown Greensboro, I asked the guys running the place where to find the good food nearby. They kinda shrugged.

Since then I’ve crawled up and down South Elm-Eugene Street and the parallel thoroughfare Randleman Road, looking for the best eats. Some of us have developed a fondness for a sub shop adjoining the nearby gas station, and of course I already knew about the legendary Stephanie’s soul food restaurant on Randleman.

I hit Pakse, the banh mi joint next to the Smith Homes housing projects, tried Paradise West Indian American (pretty good, actually) and for a while frequented Taqueria Hidalgo with coworkers. I toyed with Japanese and Chinese spots, smashed some heavy fare at a meat-and-three café someone recommended and experienced a pretty awful Mexican restaurant without adequate air where I’m pretty sure I saw a few drops of blood on the floor.

The best lunch I found didn’t show up until later, Dee’s Juke Joint, a gas station pop-up by Donnie Suggs with some crave-worthy turkey barbecue sandwiches.

ERIC GINSBURG A half order of the chicken Philly ATW is more than enough food for lunch, though it can be a little messy to eat while in transit.

So I put Suggs on the cover of the paper, only to have the county health department run him off (I’m still not others. But I’ve settled on the chicken Philly ATW — an order inside. But it’s still plenty faster than the Arby’s clear if their actions were justified). abbreviation I can only remember seeing in the South downtown (seriously, don’t go there) and much easier Through it all, I’d been going to one hold-steady, a meaning “all the way” — which in this case includes to get in and out of than my preferred sandwich spot, sandwich place with an expansive array of options and lettuce, tomato, onion, pepper and a whole heap of First Carolina Deli, over on Spring Garden Street. a drive-thru that made it all the more appealing: Sub mayonnaise.

It doesn’t appear that a Sub Station I exists. Maybe it Station II. The half sandwich is plenty, though on occasion I’ve went the way of a good number of the lots on RandleAs a journalist whose schedule always seems to be loaded up on the full. I generally add a pink lemonade, man, overcome with weeds or as part of a revolving overflowing, who more often than he’d like to admit in part because I like to tell myself that it’s healthier door of failed restaurants. But it doesn’t matter much finds himself eating in the car between appointments than soda (just let me have this). If I’m driving, I’ll to me, because I’ve still got the sequel, my go-to and who — despite his best intentions — never seems stop first and eat some of the chicken off the top of restaurant when I’m on the go. And that’s pretty much to cook as often as planned, Sub Station II fills an the open mouth of the sandwich — some will inevitaalways. important need. And given the financial limitations of bly spill anyway, but this reduces the risk — but if I’m the profession, I need somewhere cheap and that taste stationary I’ll just dig in, picking up any spillover and better than most fast food. adding it back in with my free hand.

I’m sure you can relate.

Pick of the Week This is a sort of workingman’s lunch Sub Station II has become that desIt’s not easy having a good time place, frequented by people who work tination, both for its proximity to the Pride WS Spring Drag Brunch @ Mary’s Gourmet Visit Sub Station II with their hands for a living and most of office and to the interstate, often roping Diner (W-S), Saturday, 10 a.m. at 2414 Randleman whom, I have to assume, are on break me in before I shoot out to Winston-SaEnjoy a delectable omelet while you enjoy drag from a job in the immediate vicinity. lem for my newspaper delivery route Road (GSO) or call performances from some of the finest in North There’s a patio, sure, but I almost never (yeah, we still do that ourselves) or High Carolina, including Mr. And Miss Pride Winston-Sa336.370.9136. see anyone out there taking in the view Point to check out a bar. And pretty lem 2015-2016, Aria Russo And Maxwell Parque-Diof the empty lot that used to house much every time I’m there, I order the vine. Some would say mimosas and drag on a Jeb’s Bar-B-Q next door or the immichicken Philly.

Saturday morning pairing is as perfect a pairing as nently affordable Reed Tires across the street.

In the few dozen times I’ve gone to Sub Station coffee and bagels. That someone is us. There’s a There are usually a couple cars ahead of me in the II, I’ve tried several of the sandwiches: the Italian $10 recommended donation, which benefits Pride drive-thru line, but even when it’s empty the food sausage, the pizza steak, the chicken salad, the Italian Winston-Salem, and tips are encouraged. More info doesn’t arrive a whole lot faster than it does when you can be found on the Facebook event page. meatball and the scrap sub (with leftover ends) among

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All fun, no games at Beer Olympics

patio daily specials ERIC GINSBURG

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2270 Golden Gate Dr. Greensboro, NC meltkitchenandbar.com

Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad

Three friends passionate about exceptional food and entertainment.

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All She Wrote

about the Waco biker shootout the day bar to the patio despite the gigantic prior, and with that and my experience full-service bar inside they knew what at Willie’s biker bar in Winston-Salem they were doing. I’d peg much of the fresh in my mind, I surveyed the crowd. clientele as the Coors or Bud Heavy kind Mac’s Speed Shop is the sort of place of crowd, but the beer list is remarkably where someone might walk up and end lush, including Gibb’s, Preyer, Foothills up discussing Heavy Rebel Weekender and Natty’s as well as a serious lineup with you or where you might hear two of draft beer and cans. This is no beer guys from a local motorcycle shop casugeek’s den with prized bomber bottles ally discussing Hell’s Angels, as I did last and aged vintages, but you can find week. But it’s not a roughneck sort of things like Sierra Nevada’s Otra Vez gose place where you’d expect to see someand likely several beers even craft nerds one get clocked with an empty beer haven’t tried. bottle. No, you’re much more likely to There’s wine and liquor too, if that’s see a man with a lap dog on a pink leash more your bag, though I can’t really see chatting up his server like old friends. asking for a glass of white to go with In several ways, Mac’s feels sort of your barbecue sandwich. like a Texas outpost, not so much in a And beer, after all, is right in the tumbleweed sort of way, but in that slogan. big-sky, twinkling lights and hootenanWhen the jumbo Jenga tower fell, ny type of experience. Or maybe it’s a couple women standing close to it just the brisket and the Texas toast that cheered, maybe the only spectators of comes with it. the evening’s sports. Occasionally the On my second trip to Mac’s, after pieces from the large Connect 4 would trying a good half dozen of the dishes, I clatter to the concrete floor below, but can easily say the if the patrons were St. Louis-style watching anything Visit Mac’s Speed Shop at half rack of ribs besides the live 1218 Battleground Ave. (GSO) music and ESPN, it are top of my list so far. The wings had to be the flow or at macspeedshop.com. are incredibly of bikes pulling up. smoky, so if There’s a spirit that’s your style you’ll swear by them, and a rowdiness to Mac’s Speed Shop, and I can’t say I love the mac & cheese. but one that stays contained. The vibe But the slathered ribs, especially with a on the expansive patio is more like a real salad as a side, are worth it. formalized cookout than anything else, Mac’s Speed Shop opened several which is probably a big part of what locations before this one, so I imagine draws people here to knock a few back. when somebody added a smaller beer

Opinion

Motorcycles often line the front of Mac’s Speed Shop, a chain that recently opened a Greensboro location.

News

paninis salads small plates craft beer & wine

Up Front

Welcome to the worlds shortest Olympic tournament.

Just a little more than an hour into the

by Eric Ginsburg Beer Olympics at the new Greensboro location of Mac’s Speed Shop last week, you’d never have known one had been held. The event — billed as a tournament including beer pong, jumbo Connect 4, cornhole and jumbo Jenga — either never quite got off the ground or had been quickly overshadowed by the events around it. After all, Thursday is bike night, celebrating one of the three legs this business stands on (the others being beer and barbecue).

I’ve seen a real beer-pong tourney, participated in it actually about a year ago in Raleigh. My girlfriend’s friend set up two ping-pong tables in her open garage, and had prepared by setting up a bracket on the door, a grill outside and a keg within arm’s reach. I’ve seen more than enough jumbo Jenga, too — Preyer Brewing advertised it the night before the so-called Olympics and Pig Pounder Brewery a few doors down from Mac’s heralded the game last week as well.

There are plenty of Triad bars at this point that boast it every night. And cornhole? Well, you can’t have any extra points for offering that either.

The oversized Connect 4 was all that visibly remained an hour into last week’s festivities at Mac’s Speed Shop, but nobody cared. Aging couples, a few groups of bikers and the after-work crowd packed the house, filling up stools inside and outside at the open-air chain in Marty’s Midtown along Battleground Avenue.

A two-piece band belted covers from a raised outdoor stage, and I appreciated that after a break they turned it down a notch, making conversation easier. But again, nobody else seemed to mind. They were too busy turning up, using their phones to film a few bikers backing out and roaring away, or hollerin’ the way some people do at a rodeo and others church.

I’d listened to a podcast episode

21

April 27 — May3, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Molly McGinn and Quilla fuse Americana and electronic music

by Jordan Green

T

he song emerged as a kind of prayer for ecologsome of the most compelling ical sanity from Americana singer-songwriter aspects of McGinn’s songcraft Molly McGinn after a trip to Nicaragua where would turn out to be a key part of she learned about plans to cut a canal through the the alchemy.

Central American country. She had a chord progression “Molly’s music and lyrics are full and a compelling idea, but she found herself creatively of vivid emotions and images,” stuck.

Daigneault said as the two sat for Fortuitously, she had a show lined up with Anna a recent lunch interview at Deep Luisa Daigneault, the electronic dance music artist Roots Market. “With electronic who records and performs under the name Quilla, at audiences, people want to dream the GreenHill Center for NC Arts. Daigneault offered to and feel.” take the track and pair a beat with it.

McGinn marveled at the freeAt first producing McGinn’s acoustic guitar playing dom and intuitive approach of presented a challenge for Daigneault. She turned to electronic music.

Mike Garrigan, a Greensboro singer-songwriter and “They’ll take a phrase and cut it producer known for his work with Collapsis and Atheup,” she said. “She was like, ‘You naeum, for help. should repeat the chorus twice.’ I “I don’t get it,” Daigneault told Garrigan. was like, ‘Oh wow, I can do that?’”

“The frequency and sounds are unlike anything I’ve The two artists operate from JORDAN GREEN Anna Luisa Daigneault, aka Quilla, (right) helped Molly McGinn break thorugh a creative impasse. worked with,” she explained. “There’s so much infordifferent, but complementary mation. I usually work with piano and harpsichord, MOs — or “games,” as McGinn put tic connection with the subject of her boyfriend, whom these very basic sounds. She’s playing and she also it. McGinn has longstanding ties she met on match.com. slaps the guitar for percussion. Mike Garrigan gave me to the Piedmont Triad region, while the Canadian-born “He’s six hours away from getting his pyrotechnician some advice: Multi-band compression.”

Quilla, who has had dance hits played in Miami, has a license,” she exulted. “The sparks that you see in the McGinn recalled the time when she heard the promore global foothold. [music] video — all that is, is steel wool stuffed in a duction at Daigneault’s house.

“I hate performing alone,” McGinn said. whisk with a piece of paper used as a fuse.”

“She had me come over and sit in this little room “I don’t perform a lot, but I get into it when I do,” McGinn was referring to a scene in the “Wild and with subwoofers and played it back to me,” she said. “I Daigneault said. “I’m more of a studio person.”

Kind” video where Andrea Crouse, owner of the could feel the power of it. It’s a story-driven song, but “You’re kind of in this engineering nerd phase,” eco-friendly apparel maker Gaia Conceptions, is throwit needed something to take it beyond this six-string McGinn said. ing sparks over the goldfish pond at her shop. kind of thing.”

As the two were comparing notes, a man sitting in Crouse became the muse of “Wild and Kind.”

The song “Wild and Kind” was released as a video, the grocery’s café area coughed.

“The song is from the voice of Mother Nature, who directed by Jacqui Haggerty, on April 22. It’s the openMcGinn turned toward him and asked in a kind voice: is making an observation on how politicians work and ing salvo of a budding musical partnership between “Are you all right?” how religion works,” McGinn said. “Andrea totally McGinn and Daigneault. They have three shows lined The man nodded his head and smiled, and fit because she’s this wild, lovely, beautiful woman, up over as many months. An ongoing songwriting Daigneault gave him the thumbs up. but she’s making eco-friendly products. The song is collaboration is a possibility. In the meantime, they’re Later, the man politely interrupted the interview and asking us to do both without cutting a canal through a curating a private Spotify playlist where they’re sharapproached McGinn. country.” ing music that combines live acoustic instrumentation “I have a weird story,” the man said. “Did you post Daigneault nodded. with electronic production to workshop the ideas they that you loved Willie Nelson’s Stardust album?”

“We’re pitting economy against environment when want to explore.

“Yes, I did,” McGinn replied. “You have a good memwe shouldn’t,” she said. “They’re intrinsically the Quilla’s music — a combination of ethereal vocals, ory.” same.” electric piano and beats — possesses an organic, shaThe tidbit of information came from an old match. manic quality that grows out of Daigneault’s expericom profile.

Pick of the Week ence playing live music with a band “You shot me down,” the man before she learned production. recalled.

No weeping or gnashing allowed Visit mollyandquilla.com McGinn’s work as a songwriter ex“I’m sorry,” McGinn replied, Roomful of Teeth @ WFU Brendle Recital Hall (W-S), pands outward from the American stretching out the word sorry to to learn more about Molly 8 p.m. roots music fusion of the Grateful convey genuine compassion. He Winston-Salem based production shop In McGinn and Quilla.

Dead into honky-tonk, gospel and shrugged his shoulders as he said it Ovation teams up with 88.5 WFDD to present this folk. The two artists’ personae as was no big deal, and after a round Grammy-winning a capella group Roomful of Teeth. headstrong women with artistic vision that is preocof introductions the two women encouraged him to They’ll be performing the beautifully odd and cupied with liberation and equilibrium are uncannily find a date and come to their July 9 show at Barber moving Pulitzer-winning composition “Partita for 8 parallel.

Park that culminates the Levitt AMP Greensboro Music Voices” by Caroline Shaw, also an ensemble member. And by showing up to the performance, you The biggest challenge of adapting Americana to Series, a free concert series in Greensboro funded by win an Oscar! Just kidding. You aren’t Meryl Streep. electronic dance music might be the former’s structurthe Levitt Foundation.

Sit down. Visit inovationevents.com for tickets. al DNA of ballads and narrative story songs. Isolating The interruption prompted McGinn to make a synap-

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CULTURE ‘God of Carnage’ offering appeases arts deities

by Joanna Rutter

I

n a chic living room, two buttoned-up couples gather for coffee and polite chat before discussing an incident of violence that took place between their children. It’s not apparent underneath the slight tension that soon the story will devolve into the most deplorable of human flaws clashing in one glorious explosion, covering the floor with purse contents, vomit, a whole vase full of tulips and not a small amount of rum.

That gradual and unexpected unraveling comprised much of the fun of God of Carnage by Yazmina Reza, which ran at GTCC’s new creative and performing arts theater in downtown High Point last weekend. In the same way the new building is tucked inconspicuously into GTCC’s jumble of a downtown campus, discovering the quality of theater on display at the community college was an unexpected, delightful surprise.

The small cast of four — Kelly June Hutcheson and Kristian Gonzales as the Novak family, and Abigail Fisher and Caleb Terry as the Raleighs — were each marvelously unlikeable and sympathetic in turns during the opening night of the production on April 21. Barring a missed cue or two and somewhat stilted blocking, their performances wouldn’t be out of place at other more well-known theater programs in the Triad.

It helped that the script is fantastic. God of Carnage is relatively new to the world as far as plays go, having premiered 10 years ago. It won the 2009 Tony award for Best Comedy, and the script’s deft management of the absurdities of modern human interaction make such a recognition well deserved. Gratingly passive-aggressive lines weave a plot told just as much through its subtext, which is where the play especially succeeded last weekend.

Joshua Waterstone, a newly minted theater instructor as of this semester, directed the production. His acting and teaching career geographically spans much of the Southeast, including tenures at Forsyth Tech and Georgia Shakespeare. Now, in downtown High Point, he’s hoping the space can serve as another point of access and connection for local performance arts.

“This was our first show as a department with new leadership,” Waterstone said in an interview after the play. “We just moved over to High Point campus this semester [from] Jamestown… I think a lot of people, even in High Point, do not know that there is a theater there.”

Perhaps there’s a lack of knowledge not just in the city at large, but among GTCC’s own students; as the crowd filtered out after the show ended, a student outside inquired as to what night-class had just let out, then confessed to not knowing the theater existed.

On opening night, only half of the 82 seats were filled, but those in attendance made up for the deficit by gut-laughing with the zeal of a paid studio audience — one particularly invested guest regularly muttered “Oh, no” under their breath at tenser moments.

Those interactions carried the energy of the play, which was paced to lull the viewer into a false sense of

The cast of GTCC’s God of Carnage is from left to right: Kris Gonzalez, Kelly Hutcheson, Abigail Fisher and Caleb Terry.

peace right before plunging to a new level of depravity every few minutes. For instance, the women in the play went from giggling at their husbands on the couch together to cursing while dumping out the contents of a purse in what felt like nanoseconds.

That old phrase about humor only being funny if it contains truth? It applies. That reality made some of the laughs harder to stomach, especially those about Michael Novak’s regret of being a parent (A chilling line spoken with no hyperbole: “Children consume our lives and destroy them.”) and Veronica’s faux political correctness masking her craving for utter control.

Terry, an automotive major in his debut stage appearance, was perfectly frustrating in his role as the unfeeling and cold Alan Raleigh, a pharmaceutical lawyer who indiscriminately answered his cellphone no matter what was going on in the room. His blasé attempts to defuse drama and detach with disingenuous philosophical mini-lectures would give one a vague sense of Barney Stinson déjà vu. Hopefully he’ll continue to appear on GTCC’s stage.

Fisher, as Raleigh’s volatile wife, Annette, utilized body language to convey her character’s internal struggle between protecting herself with a veneer of polite acquiescence and erupting in spurts of intense anger. Watching her gradual deterioration into fullblown wild woman was the second most enjoyable part of the production, trumped by what was the best

JOSHUA WATERSTONE/GTCC

scene of the play, in which Veronica Novak, played by Hutcheson, unexpectedly attacked her husband with couch pillows and a bloodcurdling scream.

“I’m starting to like you,” Alan Raleigh quipped.

It was a refreshing moment of honesty pointedly illustrating the thesis of God of Carnage: The capacity for violence resides in each of these four people, and is only barely hidden by the socialized sheen of polite society. It’s an unattractive mirror to hold.

Pick of the Week A new normal Ordinary Injustice screening @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), 7 p.m.

After Winston-Salem resident Kalvin Michael Smith was convicted of a brutal assault and armed robbery in December 1997, he has since languished in prison for the past 19 years, despite overwhelming evidence of a botched police investigation and prosecutorial misconduct. The film looks at the series of events that led to Smith’s arrest and prosecution and the community effort to free an innocent man. Ordinary Injustice was written, produced, edited and directed by Keith T. Barber and produced in conjunction with UNCG’s MFA film program. For tickets, go to rhodesartscenter.org.

T

Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

ANTHONY HARRISON

Culture

This cowboy surpassed the eight-second mark, but not for lack of trying from his immensely powerful, obviously perturbed steed.

Last leg of a long home stretch Samford University Bulldogs @ UNCG Spartans (GSO), Friday-Sunday, 6 p.m.

UNCG’s baseball record (31-11 as of early Tuesday afternoon) garners AP ranking attention as they head into a weekend home stretch. The Bulldogs (23-18) are SoCon rivals. The Spartans won’t be back until the end of the season. Friday’s game begins at 6 p.m., Saturday’s at 2 p.m. and Sunday’s at 1 p.m.

Visit uncgspartans.com for more info.

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with each second step, and his glaring eyes, though dumb, projected a pent-up fury more dangerous than intelligence.

Another bull, Hart Breaker, slammed his way out of the post-ride holding pen to the assembled throng’s cheers. He seemed to feed off the audience as he pawed dirt behind him, preparing to charge the roper as the man on horseback twirled his lasso. The crowd ate it up.

The intimidatingly named Nitro Freak didn’t disappoint, either. After tossing off rider Kyle Carson in 2.8 seconds, he ran at the emcee draped in red, white and blue, forcing the poor man to swiftly hop atop the circular platform in the center of the arena.

“Y’all from North Carolina don’t understand,” he’d said earlier. “[Fans] wanna see someone almost die here tonight.”

The crowd got a fearful taste of that morbid thrill in the championship round.

Less than 10 riders held on for those hellish eight seconds to advance, but Australian Nathan Burtenshaw scored a solid 83 points to make the final.

Ruff’em Up Tuck tossed Burtenshaw on his back after 6.73 respectable seconds, but the manic animal ignored the bullfighters and thrust his front hooves down on the unfortunate Aussie, the injury indeterminate — maybe a groin jab, maybe a punch to the sternum.

Regardless, the guy wasn’t getting up easy.

After an uneasy silence, he rose, supported by medics, and hobbled out of the ring.

Three riders eclipsed the eight-second mark to earn style points, but only one could earn the night’s $6,300 prize. That honor went to another Australian buckaroo, Beau Willis of Queensland. He dethroned King Buck with a score of 89 even. Seemingly unfazed after his flight from the bull’s back, he rose with a victorious yawp after dusting off his black chaps, smacking his hands together.

Among these elites, he was the best. To laypeople, he’d performed the impossible.

“How many of y’all think you could bull ride?” the emcee asked to affirmative screams. “If you really think you can do this, get in your Prius and go home.”

The crowd chuckled, but had to admit he was right.

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collective consciousness, drew a packed house to the coliseum. The same fascination drives a competitive shooter to rapidly fire repeaters or single-action revolvers in a duel with steel silhouettes, or calls hunters to the Great Plains in search of bison to hang over their mantels. Those curious yearn for America’s libertarian golden age.

But many Anglosphere nations, including Australia, follow bull riding, too. The practice extends further back in human history, beyond even classical Spanish bullfighting. Ancient Minoan Greeks held bull-leaping contests in the same vein, and the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh features the killing of the Bull of Heaven.

Man’s attempts to vanquish massive cattle dominate human imagination.

Thus, rodeo bull riding carries a certain grandeur despite its rustic roots. It’s an elite sport, its practitioners some of the most capable athletes, its victors heroes.

This inverted elitism shares traditions not only with the Iberian blood sport. Bulls receive clever names just like thoroughbred horses sprinting in derbies from Kentucky to New York: Ur Welcome, Bad Apple, Slim to None, Schizophrenic, Gonzo.

These bulls are only ostensibly domesticated; they’re as tame as your typical pet leopard. They’re clearly riled once popping out of the chute, and that madness extends after bucking the bastards from their shoulders.

Scratch Off, a bull ridden in the first round, distinguished himself among even the strongest bulls hurling their riders before the eight-second mark. He rounded the bullring, trotting past the roper — a stoic man in black atop a black bronco — and stared down those on the front row. As he strutted past, his earthen cologne of hide, hay and manure wafted; he huffed

Up Front

he beast snorts and fidgets in the narrow pen, clattering the steel bars. The hero steadies himself on the back of his vicious charge. The clowns pull open the chute’s gate; beast and rider spill into paddock, the

by Anthony Harrison monster flailing to hurl the monkey off its back.

The livid creature kicks, stamps, throws clods of dirt with its hooves. It froths at the mouth, hurling yards of slobber with each violent shake of its enormous head, and the rider must grasp onto this hulking ton of muscle with only a single hand for eight full seconds — eight seconds in bucking hell — before attaining 15 seconds of immortality. Only then may he allow himself to be vaulted from the back of the brute, rolling away from the furious feet and frightening horns of the frenzied beast, lest he be crushed or gored.

Riding bulls requires a hefty dose of insanity. But dozens of cowboys showed their stuff in the Professional Bull Riders BlueDEF Tour event at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem on April 23.

Modern bull riding, especially in the rodeo format, traces its current aesthetic roots to the American West — contemporary cowboys deck themselves in gingham shirts, ornate leather chaps, blue jeans, spurred boots and the ubiquitous 10-gallon hat. Just a dense, high-impact foam vest and the occasional hockey mask differentiate the modern rider with his romanticized counterpart of bygone times, a necessary accessory in case a stomping bull runs amok.

The romantic vision of the Old West, calcified in the

Git along, li’l dogies

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25

The forecast is bright!

A designers’ photo tour of Furniture Market trends

by Alex Klein

Bold statements are in; prints are back as well as tarnished metals.

— Jason Oliver Nixon, Madcap Cottage.

The top three trends I saw across the board at market were chinoiserie patterns, woven rattan and bamboo furniture, and lots of gold!

— Amanda K. Brown, Allied ASID, ID by AB

The Madcap Cottage gents just debuted their fabric collection for Robert Allen @ Home.

“It was so great to see how the line was used by various manufacturers; from Century and Rowe to Vanguard. Here, pillows emblazoned with our Viva Acapulco! pattern at Wildcat Territory. And we are wearing our fabrics, too, all of which are available retail at the Madcap Cottage design laboratory in down High Point year round.”

“We loved the fresh, vibrant lighting at Somerset Bay. This floral crystal chandelier was an especial stunner.”

“Kudos to Nathan Copeland and the team at Highland House for crafting a collection that was packed with color and verve. The line used to be a star stodgy, but Nathan has overhauled Highland House and now the house shines bright. Genius!”

“The same wonderful quality and style you have come to expect from Kate Spade has now been translated to high-quality home furnishings for this special collection by EJ Victor. The beautiful upholstered pieces made in Hickory, NC bring a timeless elegance to home interiors.”

“These fabulous Justinian accent chairs are part of a “collection that harkened the grace of Roman art and architecture” by Selamant Designs.

Adding these unique, metallic beauties to any interior would be the same as adding a beautiful piece of jewelry to create the perfect outfit.”

“The new Cambrian collection by the john f. brand under Feizy offers beautiful, eye-catching, organic patterns for the home. These pure polypropylene-loomed rugs made in Turkey are extremely durable and make a statement in any room.”

I observed technology being an intricate part of design. Technology and design, together are making powerful statement pieces.

— Cassandra Brunson, Design+

“The Phillips Collection has a keen eye for incredible finds as well as extraordinary product design. Phillips Collection Seatbelt Chairs are bold, stylish and comfortable, and as you might have guessed, made entirely from recycled seatbelts!”

“I loved this Kubika chair because of Glassisimo’s brave use of materials (tempered glass, stainless steel and wood — paired with FUN fur!). It’s unique and sure to steal the show in any space!”

“The Phantasm Chandelier from Cyan Design displayed in electric blue, paired with an equally cool winter setting. These can be added to a space with minimal design elements and still make a huge statement.”

Cleaned-up florals are back, while metal finishes, especially gold, are on the scene in a softer matte version. Texture is always a big market trend: this year it’s animal hides, throws and upholstery.

— Jess Dauray, Jessica Dauray Interiors.

“The Van Collier showroom rocked it with the zebra hide area rug and royal blue tufted settee. Texture, color, and softer furniture profiles were spoton trends. I also loved the upholstered ottoman table grouping, with its metal base and leather top: Form, function, and style.”

“Organic materials like concrete were a popular choice for tables, stools and accessory accents. I love the versatility and the cool industrial/organic vibe of this set from Sunpan Furniture. They are the perfect accent to incorporate into any casual interior space or alfresco seating area.”

“Edison bulbs in pendants and chandeliers are in, along with asymmetrical lighting with an industrial and mid-century vibe. These oversized bulbs from Aspen Brands are a brilliant way to reinvent a blah fixture into a stunning design statement.”

BREW n’ VIEW SCREEENING! 7 p.m. Saturday, April 30th $6 ticket includes FREE BEVERAGE

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April 27 — May3, 2016

Playing April 29 – May 2 “Captain America: The Winter Solider”

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters

Opinion

Featuring Q&A with Arcade Master Walter Day 9 p.m. Friday, April 29th $6 ticket includes FREE SURPRISE! Sausage Fest presents

“White Lightning”

(1973) Starring BURT REYNOLDS 10 p.m. Saturday, April 30th $6 ticket includes FREE SAUSAGE! FREE ADMISSION 7 p.m. Monday, May 2

Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee!

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‘The Luck / Is Yours’ with the / help of a / numeral.

by Matt Jones Across

1 Capital / south of / Ecuador 5 Place to / do Zumba, / perhaps 8 Ebert or / Siskel’s / “ratings” / figures?

14 Autobio / by Turow / based at / Harvard 15 Edge of a / garment 16 Deletes 17 H.S. class / with lab / studies 18 “Sum,” as in / “... ergo sum” 19 Harriet / Tubman’s / new bill 20 Harold’s / titular / best bud 22 Abbr. in a / to-let ad 24 Speck in / one’s eye 25 Muscat’s / natives 27 Duncan’s / nemesis / in a Bard / tragedy 30 Genre of / Yanni or / crystal / healing 31 Actress / Sorvino 32 British / lexicon, / in brief 34 & 36. Guy who’d / sell you / Gruyere 36 37 How your / senator / signals / dissent 38 Tattoos, / in slang 41 & 42. Tonight 42 43 GQ staff, / briefly 44 Leaping / A. A. Milne / young ‘un 45 & 46. WWE Hall / of Famer / who’s now / “The Body ... / Politic?”

46 48 Georgia / capital, / in slang 49 Firenze / flooder, / in Italy

51 Lyle who / was seen / on old TV / sitcoms 55 Star who / is not as / notable 57 Do a film / editor’s / job, once 58 Class of / numbers?

59 Make the / motor go / vroom in / neutral 61 Hunt who / saw cows / fly by in / “Twister” 62 Dress to / sing in a / chorale, / perhaps 65 Bowlful / you sink / chips in 67 Feeling / pleased 68 ___ a living 69 Defunct / GM brand 70 Monthly / payment, / perhaps 71 African / malaria / carrier 72 Lamb’s ma 73 “... ___ it seems”

Down

1 Aim at, as / a target 2 Inter, or / put back / a casket 3 “Big Bang / Theory”’s / “grandma” / moniker / (i.e., as per / Sheldon) 4 “Farmer’s” / ref full / of facts 5 Letters / beneath / a four, on / a keypad 6 It opens / on every / January 7 “Humming” / part of a / tagline / for soup 8 Letters / like .doc, / but for a / Notepad / file ext.

9 Cut with / an axe in / a forest 10 Funk hit / for Bill / Withers 11 Sound of / droning / on and on, / on and on ...

12 Beavis’s / partner / in crime 13 Eye sore?

21 Punch by / a leftie / no boxer / expects 23 “Amen! You / ___!” (“Right on!”)

26 “Now wait / for just / a moment ...”

28 Upscale / sugared / hybrids / that are / usually / flakier 29 Summary / of stats / in a boxy / display 33 Start of / “-lexia” or / “-peptics” 35 Disney’s / one-time / boss man / Michael 38 George’s / lyrical / brother 39 “I’ll pass” 40 It bears / nuts now / used in a / limited / variety / of Pepsi 47 Briskly, / in music 50 Nervous 52 Invoice / charger 53 Pacific / plus all / the rest 54 Care for 56 “Go ahead, / ask away!”

58 Run into 60 Hilltop / feature 63 Student / vehicle?

64 It comes / prior to / “automne” 66 “Annabel / Lee” poet

Fun & Games

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4 Films by Philip Brubaker

GAMES

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Answers from previous publication.

28

Music & Lyrics by

Stephen Sondheim Book by

James Lapine Conducted by UNCG Alumnus

Dominick Amendum Aycock Auditorium

April 29 & 30, 2016 @ 8:00pm Tickets: $10 – $20 UNCG: 336-334-4392 or Triad Stage: 336-272-0160 theatre.uncg.edu

©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

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South Davie Street, Greensboro

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08 Chrysler

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09 BMW 3-Series

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Sunday afternoon downtown.

29

Darling Nikki

M

e (to bartender in Juarez): What’s that stain running across that wall? Was there something pushed up against it?

Bartender: Si. La gente.

Me: ¿Que? What do you mean “The people?”

Bartender: It is the, how do you say, Grinding Wall.

Up Front

April 27 — May3, 2016

ALL SHE WROTE

Me: Ah.

When your name is Nicole and Prince decides to write a dirty song about your nickname when you are in high school, all hell breaks loose.

You can’t enter a school dance or prom without some wiseacre dorky DJ (yes, DJs used to be the AV club guys) cranking “Darling Nikki” at full volume. It doesn’t matter if you are a virgin or a bona fide tart — it has the same effect. It’s slut-shaming before slut-shaming is even a verb.

So what the hell are you supposed to do? Might as well embrace it. I mean it is Prince and he’s pretty badass. (And it could be worse. My boarding school roommate’s middle name was Eileen and I know that having boys yell “Come on Eileen” at you 10 times a day must have gotten old.)

And so it came to pass that my first, loin-lingering ache of a grind had Purple Rain as its soundtrack. I don’t even remember the boy — nor the venue — but I know that we danced at least half the length of the album and Nikki was my name from there on out.

Miss Ruby (answering the phone at my parent’s house): Crews’s res-i-dence. Who you want to talk to baby?

Prank Caller (cranking “Darling Nikki”): Thank you for the funky time!

Miss Ruby: Lawd. Child ain’t got any sense.

All She Wrote

30

“When Doves Cry” We may have listened to the Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Black Flag, the Replacements, REM, Hüsker Dü, Circle Jerks, Minutemen and Suicidal Tendencies but we danced to Bowie, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Duran Duran, the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Smiths, INXS, the Police and anything else with a dance beat.

We were overachievers by day and hung out with hairdressers and retail Romeos at clubs by weekend night. We posed with punks in garages and underground venues and generally veered between all of these worlds with ease.

It was a fine time to be a teen and after all of these years, I think “Darling Nikki” suits me just fine.

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by Nicole Crews

“Let’s Go Crazy” Slowly, and also at least partially thanks to Prince, my childhood wardrobe of Lacoste dresses and Tretorns was being replaced with something more likely seen on the newly-minted channel MTV than “Family Ties.” My girlfriends and I would secretly shop at Foxy Fashion and Merchant for parachute pants, striped jeans, studded belts, puffy shirts, pointy pumps and granny boots. We slashed our sweatshirts Flashdance style and cut our hair in harmonious asymmetry. Whatever cash remained we spent on concert tickets, vinyl and door covers for after-hours gay clubs where we could dance the night away — at least until 4 a.m. This was no cotillion. This was no beach music shagathon. This was full-on “Nasty Girl” and we were the Vanity 4.

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Aimee Frink, Andrea King, “Darling Nikki” and Pam Eileen Karesh

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Illustration by Jorge Maturino